Legacy
by Reese M
Summary: A new generation of agents have been recruited to the Warehouse. Some are thrilled by the arrival of the two new members of the team, while others are far less thrilled. Time has changed a lot of things, but when all is said and done, family is always family. Future fic with kids. Pairings: Bering and Wells, Pete and Amanda Lattimer.
1. Prologue

Prologue 

There comes a time in every Warehouse agent's life when their role with the Warehouse must change. As the years go on, as the agent changes with his or her life experiences, other things become important, some things even become more important. For many of the agents who have worked for the Warehouse they just walk away and live their lives, leaving the Warehouse and its wonders in their past. Some agents however simply can't walk away, they can't let all those endless wonders linger in their memories, they have to continue in some way, even after making the choice to seek out the other adventures life has to offer.

Agents Myka Bering and H.G. Wells were devoted to the Warehouse for many years, many many years in the case of H.G. who served both Warehouse 12 and 13 in her long and extraordinary life. The only things that mattered more to them than the Warehouse and even their friends, was each other. There came a time when they found themselves having to make the toughest choice they had ever faced, and after a lot of soul searching and self-discovery on both their parts, the choice was made. Though they considered their Warehouse partners family, the kind of family they grew to want together required them to leave behind the dangerous snag, bag, and tag life of active agents.

Myka and Helena were married, surrounded by the people they loved most, and then moved to Helena's native London where both women excelled in their civilian professions, both in publishing. Myka would become a highly respected editor while Helena once again found success as an author, only this time she was free to publish under her own name Helena Bering-Wells and use her own face. As for the Warehouse, Myka would eventually become a Regent while Helena remained a consulting agent.

As for their reason for leaving, they had two. First a son they named Christopher Pete and then a daughter, Sarah Jean. Born of Myka and the great great-grandson of Helena's brother Charles. The young man, who looked so much like Charles Helena found it staggering, had had big dreams and little cash and found the very temping offer of a large sum of money and guaranteed admittance into medical school made by a spunky young redhead more than acceptable and gladly parted with the needed biological material the two women required.

Though she was not their biological mother Helena cherished and adored Sarah and Christopher, and she was grateful beyond words at being given another chance to be a mother. The family thrived; Myka and Helena were happy, even on those days when they missed the adventures of solving puzzles and saving the day. They raised their children in their posh home with it's beautiful gardens and every once in awhile would pop off on Warehouse business, the children none the wiser, they were always told it was for their civilian work. As much as they would have loved to raise their family in the B&B near the Warehouse it was impossible and far too dangerous. It was best, as Jane Lattimer had said to keep the children as far from anything Warehouse as they could get them.

The pull for something more hits everyone at some point. Not long after Myka and H.G. left Agent Pete Lattimer found himself once again tracking down an artifact that was whamming his ex-wife Amanda's life. Following the successful snag and bag of the artifact Pete and the now twice divorced Amanda reconnected. They were both older, had more knocks and lumps from life, Pete had been sober for a long time by then and Amanda's ambitions mellowed, or at least her career ambitions had. They were remarried, moved back to Ohio, where Amanda worked as a Marine recruiter and Pete worked out of the Cleveland field office of the Secret Service. Finally finding happiness with each other lead to new ambitions and the two soon found themselves the parents of three boys, Matthew, Michael, and their youngest, Arthur, all named after people important to Pete and that was just fine with Amanda, she got to pick middle names.

But as so much changes some things stay the same, and yet change was always right there on the horizon, an endless ebb and flow of stable chaos. Artie was still puttering around the Warehouse grumbling at everyone, Agent Steve Jinks had taken up more of the fieldwork as lead agent along with Agent Claudia Donavan who was also continuing her training to become the Caretaker of the next Warehouse. Agents came, and went, the years passed by and once again the Warehouse found its self in need a fresh pair of hands. Of course Mrs. Fredrick already had her eyes on the perfect pair to be her very last recruitment before everything changed forever, because the biggest change for the Warehouse was coming, one that happened before and would happen again until the end of time. There comes a time in every Warehouse's life when it must die and a new one born, and that too was on the horizon, but first Mrs. Fredrick would change the lives of two more unsuspecting people, she would help bring forth a rightful legacy, and in the end she would rest peacefully knowing everything was in good hands.


	2. Chapter 1

It happened repeatedly, baffling the local police forces, crowds of people in some of the busiest parts of London spontaneously freaking out apparently over nothing. Of course when this became a repeated incident in a vast number of locations all over the greater London area, the police called in the Security Service, or more commonly known as MI5, to help pull together the vast amount of so far unhelpful information. At first it was just the mass hysteria, but then came the reports of thefts happening in the area were the frightened people were fleeing. Was it possible that someone was using some kind of chemical compound to clear out an area to make stealing cash and valuables easier? That seemed like the most logical answer, but honestly what fun were logical answers?

She had gotten the call around five that morning, waking her from a pleasant dream and dragging her from her warm bed, but after the last incident she didn't mind the ungodly early hour or the cold wet London morning. All she cared about now was finding who was responsible for this and making them pay for what they've done. Slipping out of her car the young woman made her way towards her crime scene. As the light rain began to bead on her gray raincoat and soak the cuffs of her black slacks she was glad she'd taken the few extra minutes to put her jet black hair into a tight pony tail, other wise it would have curled and proofed out the instant she stepped out of her building. Hazel eyes that shifted between brown and green depending on the circumstances darted around the area taking in the now all to familiar scenes of people coming down from the fright of their lives.

"There you are." A middle-aged man said as he came up to her.

The look on his face let her know something unpleasant was about to happen. Her stomach knotted and lurched as she silently hoped this didn't turn out like the last attack. "Inspector Collins. Do we have a problem?"

"Oh you bet we do." The man replied as he began leading her towards a shop. "You're not going to like this."

Standing with the visually shaken shopkeeper was a man perhaps no more than five years her senior. He had short medium brown hair with flecks of red and gold highlights. He was tall, broad shouldered but not bulky in mass, and his eyes were an unexpected shade of blue. When they were close enough for her to hear what was being said she heard an unmistakable American accent asking the shopkeeper questions that he shouldn't be asking. Her own eyes narrowed as her body language became intimidatingly impressive for someone who was considered pretty young for her field of work. She was after all just a year out of University.

"Excuse me." She said in a tone that made many a man quiver for various reasons.

"In a sec." The man replied before going back to asking the man in front of him about what happened.

Something dangerous flashed in hazel eyes. She gave the Inspector with her a look and he quickly went to the shopkeeper, guiding him away from the man in the rain soaked suit.

Those unexpectedly blue eyes shot up to meet her angry hazel eyes. "What do you think your doing? I was…"

"Questioning a witness." She finished for him. "Yes, I know, but what I don't know is, why you think you had a right to."

He sized her up before smirking at her. The fitted black slacks, comfortable yet stylish slightly heeled boots, the rather nice gray not quite a trench coat rain coat, the hint of a crisp white collar, the seriously severe pony tail, he didn't need to see a badge to know one of his own. "You the agent on this case for the Brits?" Before she could answer he was flashing his own badge. "Special Agent Michael Lattimer, FBI."

"FBI?" She replied as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her weight more on her right leg. "You're a long way from your jurisdiction Agent Lattimer. This is my case. I would advise you not to interfere again."

"Look, lady," Michael said as he tried to be charming, but knowing he was failing miserably. He was still working on charming. "I've been working on this for months. London isn't this guy's first stop. He was in New York before he got here."

"Yes." She replied. "I know. And now he's here, in London, my city, my country, my case."

"Oh come on!" Michael protested.

Cutting him off before his whinging could go any further she said, "Now if you'll excuse me."

"Look, Agent?" He paused so she could reply.

"Officer." She corrected with a deep sigh.

The young man blinked. "Huh?"

She turned to face him and rolled her eyes. "I am an intelligence officer, hence, Officer Wells, not agent."

"Oh, good to know." He said with a smile that he hoped was disarming. "Officer Wells, neither one of us is going to willingly give up working this case so we might as well work it together."

She smiled in away that was smug and slightly condescending. "Or if you don't back off and leave I'll have you arrested. Now, do enjoy your trip back to the airport and have a safe flight."

Michael watched her walk away and smiled. He didn't give up easily, and he could tell she didn't either. This could be fun. Turning on his heel he pulled out his phone and Googled an address before walking over to his rented car, opening the door, and then closing it again. "Other side of the car Mikes. Other side of the road too."

Just like with all the other times no one saw anything, heard anything, smelled anything, or in any way detected anything that could give her any kind of lead. All anyone remembered was the sudden feeling of terror that gripped them, causing them to run away, but run from what no one knew. Sarah leaned against the back wall of the lift as it made it's way up to her floor. She was once again running things through in her mind, but nothing was jumping out at her as useful. Stepping off the lift she started towards her office when her superior called her into his. She groaned inwardly. She didn't have anything new to tell him. Her annoyance exploded when she walked in to find the American sitting in one of the chairs.

Michael stood and smiled. "Nice to see you again Officer Wells."

Inwardly Sarah was using every single dirty name and curse word she knew. Outwardly she gave him a slight nod. "Agent Lattimer." Turning to her superior she asked what he needed and he explained that their agencies have agreed to work the panicking mob cases together. That didn't set well with Sarah but it didn't show. She simply acknowledged her orders, what else could she do? As she left her superior's officer for her own with Michael following after like a giddy puppy she did her best to keep her cool, but the moment they were behind the closed door of her personal space she whirred on him. "You son of a bitch."

Michael blinked. He wasn't expecting her to be happy about this, he'd be pissed off too, but he wasn't expecting this either. "Well that was very unEnglish and really very unlady like." Before she could say anything to him about his remark or his presence he continued, "We've both worked this case on our own and neither of us has gotten very far. Whatever this is, whatever is causing this, it needs to be stop before someone ends up dead."

Some of Sarah's harshness crumbled as she leaned back against her desk. "Someone already has." She reached behind herself for a folder and handed it to him. "Hamish Baker, fifteen. Out with his mates got caught up in the panic and ran out in front of an coming bus."

That explained a lot. He'd be territorial to if this had happened on his end. Kids always added an edge to a case, especially dead kids. He read over the file and than looked up at the woman standing across the room. "Ok, I get it."

"Do you?" Sarah asked. "The last thing I need is some American cowboy coming in and rough riding all the way I do things."

Michael laughed. "I'm from Cleveland. No cowboys in Cleveland, I promise." He narrowed his eyes slightly as he asked, "You got something against Americans?"

Sarah laughed softly at the absurdity of his statement. "My Mother is an American." She told him in response to his question, before going on to explain. "I have something against anything or anyone who's going to make my job that much harder."

"Then I won't make it harder." Michael told her. "Lets see if I can't make it a little easier."

She looked at him for several long moments before saying, "Fine, for now, but I make no promises that I won't have your ass deported if you annoy me."

He smiled. "I make no promises that I won't annoy the hell out of you. I annoy the hell out of everyone."

"Bloody grand." She said with a long defeated sigh before pulling out all her information. "Lets get on then."


	3. Chapter 2

They worked for hours just comparing notes. They both agreed that the two attacks in New York were his first, and the first ones in London were a test. Whatever he was using he'd been figuring out how it worked at first and once he had the hang of it he started really putting it use. Despite the prickly way this whole thing started, they each had to admit that once they got going they kind of worked well together. It took a little adjustment on both their parts but they were able to figure each other out enough to find a rhythm that allowed them to get the work done. They were both team players, but they were also both team leaders, and that caused a few bumps along the way. Once they had shared information and hashed out a few theories, narrowing the path of their investigation, it was pretty late and they were both exhausted. Michael suggested they head home and get some sleep. Sarah was reluctant at first but then finally gave in when she realized that she wasn't just tired but starving.

As they left her office Michael's gaze scanned the nameplate on her door and smiled. "Hyphenated name." He said as his finger brushed over the etched Bering-Wells. "You married? These late hours can't be easy on a marriage."

"Not married." Sarah said as she locked her door and then headed down the hall for the lift.

"Divorced?" Michael asked as they waited.

Sarah sighed. She was too tired to play twenty questions. "Family name, two mothers, use both of their surnames, happy?"

Michael held his hands up in surrender. "Just making small talk."

They parted ways at their cars with a promise to meet back in her office by seven the next morning. She knew there was left over curry in her fridge so she headed straight home, driving pretty much on autopilot. The moment she closed and locked the door behind her Sarah started shedding the day. Rain coat hit the floor, boots were unzipped and dropped as she walked down the small entry hall, her bag was tossed on the table just under the light switch she was just about to flip, and her blouse was just about half undone as the lights in her living room came up. Until that moment the only light had been from the table lamp at the end of her sofa, but now with most of the flat illumined Sarah could see she wasn't alone. Fear, anger, adrenalin, self-preservation all rushed through her body in the seconds between her yelp of shock and realization. "Bloody hell! Mum! You scared the life out of me!"

The elegant figure perched on Sarah's sofa set aside the book she'd been reading and stood gracefully. She smiled sweetly at her girl. "I'm sorry darling. I didn't mean to startle you."

As far as her children were concerned Helena Bering-Wells was just shy of her 60th birthday, and not in fact her 171st. Because her children didn't know about the Warehouse, they didn't know who she truly was. That had been both liberating for Helena and sad. She could be just their Mum, and not have to worry about them keeping secrets or trying to explain all the hows and whys, but at the same time she was forced to keep a piece of herself from them and that hurt.

"What are you doing…" Sarah began to ask the beautiful older woman who's hair was still as black as ever, who's face held few signs of age, laugh lines around her mouth, crinkles at the corner of her eyes from years of smiling. Though there was a little more curve to Helena's body due to age, Myka would be the first to say she was just as beautiful as the day she was debronzed, though she would never say it near the children. "Oh crap, we were meeting for diner weren't we? I forgot, Mum. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize, my love." Helena said as she walked over to her daughter to look Sarah over. She hid her worry and concern behind a warm smile. "I know you're caught up in your case." She reached up to cup Sarah's cheek. "So much like your mother." She said with a sigh and shake of her head. "Which is why I decided to come by and wait. I thought you might be in need of looking after."

"I'm not a little girl, Mum." Sarah protested but it was fake and they both knew it. Sarah really wouldn't mind a little looking after.

"Really?" Helena gasped in jest. "Well that would explain the lack of pig tails and a school jumper." Helena sighed dramatically. "I suppose I'll have to break the news to your mother. She'll be ever so disappointed."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Where is Mom?"

"Called away on business." Helena answered. "She'll be home in a few days." Leaning in close Helena placed a kiss on Sarah's forehead. "That's from her." Then she kissed the tip of her nose. "And that is all me." The smile Sarah gave her warmed Helena from toe to hair root. "Now, why don't you have a long hot shower while I make you something to eat?"

As sweetly as it might have been said it was not a request or suggestion but just her Mum's way of telling her to do something so Sarah nodded. "Sounds good." She added before heading towards her bedroom to gather her things and then heading to the bathroom for a long hot shower. There really wasn't much for Helena to work with in Sarah's kitchen so when she emerged from the bathroom, scrubbing the water from her black tresses, Sarah found the warmed curry leftovers waiting for her, but with an added bonus of two slices of cheese on toast, which only her Mum could do properly. Once she'd finished eating Sarah found herself stretched out on the sofa with her head on a pillow in her mother's lap. Helena had been concerned, her little girl looked stressed and worn, and she wanted to help if she could. Sarah couldn't talk about details but she could share enough that as she talked, as she focused on her Mum's fingers as they combed through her hair, as she felt the warmth of Helena's other hand as it rested on top of her own which were folded over her stomach, she felt her body relax and her mind unwind.

"Does this annoying American have a name?" Helena asked, her voice laced with amusement. But she didn't get an answer because Sarah was sound asleep. Helena smiled as she carefully leaned close and kissed her daughter's forehead. "Sleep well my precious girl."

The next morning when Sarah woke up she was momentarily confused about why she was on the sofa. Then she remembered her Mum and smiled. The note she found was a promise that Helena would return that afternoon which meant her kitchen would be fully stocked. If only her Mom weren't out of town all her laundry would have been done as well. Having her Mum fuss over her hadn't just been nice; it had been helpful as well. Unloading and distressing had cleared her mind, and when she got to the office her train of thought was back on track. When Michael walked in she didn't even bother with a hello or good morning. "He's local."

"Good morning to you too." Michael said as he set two paper cups on the table. "Kid at the coffee cart said you actually have coffee in the mornings."

"Much to my Mum's displeasure, yes." Sarah said as she accepted the cup. "Thank you."

"So local?" Michael asked after sipping from his cup. "How do you figure?"

"The thief in New York was straight up cash. Travel funds." Sarah explained. "But here, it's cash, electronics, jewelry, home goods, a child's bike. We're not dealing with some criminal master mind, just some local tosser who found an easy way to steal what he couldn't buy."

Michael thought it over and nodded. "Ok, but the cash he got in New York was more than the price of plane ticket." He paused a moment and then added, "So he brought it with him which means if he wants to spend it here he'll have to exchange it."

Sarah smiled as she snatched up her phone. "Lets see what we can do with that information."

While they waited on news from Sarah's IT people Michael said, "Ok, so clown stumbled onto something that makes people run scared so he can steal crap, but what?"

"I don't have a single idea." Sarah sighed. "There's nothing left behind, no canister that would imply a chemical release. There's nothing on the victims, no marks or injuries that would imply some kind of weapon. And there doesn't seem to be a lasting effect, so whatever it is it's instant, and temporary."

"How do we know that?" Michael asked.

Sarah pulled out a cluster of folders. "Medical tests. Blood work comes back clean, MRIs come back clear, EEGs show no abnormities."

Michael looked through all the medical reports with a touch of surprise on his face. "These are a lot of tests for no answers. How'd you managed this?"

"National health care." Sarah replied with a smirk. "You wouldn't believe how easy things become when you make medicine less of a corporation and more what it was meant to be, a basic human service, not a pence from the pockets of the King's citizens."

"Hey, we got that too." Michael replied.

Sarah snorted. "Yeah just a few short years ago. Seriously if you lot would have stuck around to learn a little more about being a civilized country instead of throwing a hissy fit and storming away like a bratty child you'd be in a much better place right now."

Michael knew she was teasing so he teased back. "Are you sure your Mom's American?"

"As apple pie and baseball." Sarah replied with a smirk. "I however am strictly high tea and proper football."

Michael laughed. "Except for the whole morning coffee thing."

Using the serial numbers on the American bills the IT people where able to find the exchange site their suspect used, and thanks to electronic monitoring they were able to get a picture. Sarah than used facial recognition to get a proper identification before using CCTV and a neat little MI5 program Michael couldn't see her use to get a location. As they prepared to have a closer look he reached out to stop her by grabbing her arm. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Sarah looked confused. "No?"

"Side arm?" He asked.

Hazel eyes rolled with annoyance. "I don't carry a weapon. I'm an intelligence officer not a combat officer. Once we have confirmation on our suspect I'll call in the proper people who can arrest him."

Michael frowned. "So no guns?"

"No guns." Sarah confirmed before walking off.

Michael pouted. "But I miss my gun."

It was a warm sunny spring day so the shopping complex was full of people. Live CCTV feeds and Sarah's search program had the suspect in the complex. Sure enough moments after they arrived a crowd of people came flooding out of the complex and onto the street. Sarah called for police assistance while she and Michael headed inside. They made their way through the on coming crowd only to be hit by a wall of emotion, of fear that took their breath away.

The pulse of emotion hit her and almost instantly triggered a memory. She and Chris were on a school break; her Mum was doing research for a new book so they rented a little cottage in Galway. They'd gone down to the sea and despite their mothers telling them the water was to rough and to cold, Sarah and her brother wanted to swim. She and Chris slipped off, ran into the water, it was freezing but she hadn't cared. They enjoyed it, it was trilling, the rush of the water, the shock of the cold, the thrill of defiance, it was a blast until it all went wrong. She'd gone under, becoming disoriented, the water was harsh and cold, and she was gripped with a fear she had never in her life felt before or since. That's what this felt like, the crippling cold fear of drowning the North Atlantic. Focusing herself back to the present Sarah focused on the man at the center of the icy waves. That day in the water what pulled her out of the terror was the sudden feeling of being wrapped in strong arms, her Mum's arms at first but once they'd made it to the shore her Mom's as well. Sarah clung to that, used that feeling to fight the absolute panic she felt now.

Whatever their suspect was using it somehow triggered the very basic of emotional responses because Michael was suddenly remembering what it felt like to be five years old, his very first baseball game, and the crippling fear he'd felt when he'd gotten separated from his Dad. He was little and being bounced around by the currents of moving adults as they came to and from their seats. It hadn't been more than a few minutes before his Dad scooped him up and hugged him, but for those few minutes Michael had been absolutely paralyzed with fear. Like Sarah he used the memory of feeling secure in his father's arms to fight against the pulsing emotion that slammed him over and over likes waves against a stone. As they got closer he noticed that the man held out his fist as if pointing it. It was odd, comic bookish, and that's what made Michael wonder. Their suspect had an old looking ring on his middle finger. Could that somehow be the thing they were looking for?

Sarah was closer, Michael was having a harder time getting through the panic-stricken crowd, but she was a little more delicate in her physique as was able to reach their suspect first. There was no time to wait on police action so she took action herself, lunging for the man. She tackled him to the ground, they struggled but she had no idea what to do to stop what he was doing.

"The ring!" Michael yelled out to her. "Take the ring!"

The ring? Why? But then she looked at it and blinked. Was she seeing sparks coming from it? Ok, take the ring it was. She wrestled the guy for it, taking her share of knocks, but she managed to get the ring off him. Once it was in her hand something changed. The pulse of emotion washing over everyone was no longer fear and panic, but that peaceful sense of calm that came over a person when they knew everything would be alright.

When Michael reached her he asked, "Are you ok?"

"Fine." She grunted a moment before decking their suspect to knock him out so he would stop struggling against her.

Michael looked impressed and smiled.

"Nice work." An American voice said as a sandy haired man with bright eyes and a nice smile walked towards them wearing purple gloves. "I'll be taking that."

He was pointing to the ring. "Like hell." Sarah replied, her hand closing around the ring. "Who are you?" She looked at Michael. "One of yours?"

Michael shook his head.

The man reached for the ring but Sarah jerked her hand out of the way, keeping it out of his reach. "This is evidence and there's no way…"

He hadn't wanted to do it but the ring needed to be neutralized and Jinks really didn't have time to talk down the locals so he drew his Tesla and stunned the two of them. It was best that way anyway, didn't need them remembering him. Bad enough they did his job for him, Artie wouldn't let him hear the end of this one.

Sarah moaned as she came to. Her head was throbbing worse than the three-day bender her best friend had called a Hen night.

"Easy lass." Inspector Collins said as he helped Sarah into a sitting position.

"What the bloody hell happened?" She moaned as her hands went to her head and knees drew to her chest.

"Feed back from the electronic device the suspect was using." Collins explained. "Knocked you on your arse after you disarmed him."

"It did?" Sarah asked. "I did?" She blinked against the pain and then asked, "Agent Lattimer?"

"He's fine." Collins answered. "Same shape you're in."

She relaxed but only by a fraction until she found out that the suspect had been arrested and his terror devise confiscated. After being debriefed and looked over by a doctor she and Michael were finally allowed to go home, or in his case back to his hotel. Standing out in the chilled London night air Sarah admitted that working with him hadn't been as awful as she'd expected it to be.

"Gee, I knew you liked me." Michael said with a smile.

"Don't push it." Sarah replied, a smile of her own. Then she asked, "You heading home soon?"

"First thing in the morning." He replied.

Sarah nodded. "Safe flight Agent Lattimer."

"It was a pleasure Officer Wells." Michael replied.

Sarah laughed. "No it wasn't I was a pain in the ass."

"Made it more fun." Michael said before giving her a little wave and ducking into his rental car.

Now that he was gone Sarah could admit, she hadn't minded working with him. Hell, they kind of made a good team in the end.


	4. Chapter 3

The whole drive home something kept nagging at the back of Sarah's mind. Something about the electronic devise they'd found, the one she's apparently taken off the suspect, it didn't seem right to her. She hadn't seen a devise had she? Hadn't it been something else? Shaking off her thoughts as just fatigue Sarah made her way up to her flat with nothing on her mind but decompressing and then going to bed.

"Mum?" Sarah called out as she walked into her home. This time she was more careful about putting her things away simply because her mother might be in the room. "Mum, are you here?"

When there was no reply Sarah actually pouted. Helena had been there, her kitchen was in fact well stocked with more than just yogurt and beer. As she reached into her fridge for one of those beers an odd feeling crept up her spine. "Mum? Is that you?" When she stood up and turned away from the fridge it wasn't her mother standing there. The bottle she'd just pressed to her lips slipped from her hand as she gasped, "Who the…"

"My name is Mrs. Fredrick." The black woman who looked as if she stepped out a 1950's movie said in an American accent. "And I'm with the government."

"From my government?" Sarah said as she went for a one of the knives on the counter near the fridge. A rather large man, who wasn't in the room a second ago, gripped Sarah's wrist and took the knife from her, which caused Sarah's panic to double. Her heart was pounding; her mind racing as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Yes and no." Mrs. Fredrick replied while she placed a folder on the counter and slid it towards Sarah.

"What's that?" Sarah demanded.

"An innovation." Mrs. Fredrick said with a smile.

"To?" Sarah asked as her eyes darted between the woman and man.

Mrs. Fredrick smiled. "Endless Wonder."

The phrase stopped Sarah cold. She looked at the woman, looked into her eyes, and for some reason she relaxed. How many times had she heard her mothers use that same phrase? "Who are you? What's going on?"

"You're being transferred Ms. Bering-Wells." Mrs. Fredrick explained. "Everything is in that folder. You'll find all authorization is in order and verified. You will be expected at those coordinates in forty-eight hours."

This was all happening really fast and out of nowhere, leaving Sarah feeling a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. "Transferred? Where? By who?"

"By me." Mrs. Fredrick replied.

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not going any bloody where with anyone unless I hear directly from my superiors that…"

The phone on the end table began to ring.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Mrs. Fredrick asked.

"Nope." Sarah said with wide eyes and a quickened pulse. This was a dream, a dream caused by stress and one of her mother's weird stories. She stared at Mrs. Fredrick who stared right back, never flinching or diverting her gaze. When the answering machine picked up Sarah held her breath until her Mom's voice came through.

"Sarah, it's Mom." Myka said over the line. "Mum says your stressing out over a case and acting a little to much like me for her comfort. I'm just calling to make sure you're ok. You're ok aren't you? Call me back when you get this. Love you sweetheart."

There was a flicker of something in this strange woman's eyes that caught Sarah's attention as they listened to her mother's message. Recognition? When the message ended she chuckled in a slightly embarrassed way. "Moms. I have two double the hovering."

The smile Mrs. Fredrick gave the girl was almost affectionate before it disappeared into the rather stern expression she'd worn moments before the call. "Now, as I was saying. Do not tell anyone about this new assignment. Pack lightly, we'll have the rest of your things shipped to you and the remainder stored."

Sarah blinked. "Um, excuse me, what?"

"You're reassignment is permanent, dear." Mrs. Fredrick said with a soft reassuring smile. "But don't worry, you'll be in very good company. I'll see you in South Dakota in a couple of days."

Sarah watched, dumbfounded and confused as the odd woman and large scary man walked out of her flat, leaving her with strange orders to completely relocate to South Dakota. What the hell was even in South Dakota? Cows? Didn't Americans keep cows in South Dakota? Why the hell was she being sent there? And by who? Which government? Hers? The Americans? It wasn't until she went to move closer to the counter to pick up the folder that she realized there was beer and broken glass all over her floor. "Oh bugger."

After a little checking and confirmation that the transfer was legit, and a brief explanation to her mothers, Sarah caught a flight to the U.S., took a second flight from New York to South Dakota and then drove a rented car out into the middle of nowhere where she indeed found a cow. She stood in front of an old rusted building of some sort trying to figure this all out, while absentmindedly scratching the cow behind her ear.

Inside Mrs. Fredrick stood with Claudia Donavan, future Caretaker current agent, who watched the flickering screen that showed them Sarah's arrival. "Are you sure about this?" The young redhead asked. "They are going to be so pissed when they find out."

"Who I choose to recruit is my business not theirs." Mrs. Fredrick replied. "Just as it has always been and just as it will be for you."

"Yeah, I'm not dumb enough to go behind their backs and recruit their kids." Claudia said rather bravely.

"Jane got over it." Mrs. Fredrick said. "So will they."

Claudia snorted. "Jane isn't H.G."

"Go fetch the new agents." Mrs. Fredrick said with a sigh and a dismissive flick of her hand.

"Sure thing." Claudia said as she headed for the door. "Wouldn't want the first person they meet to be Artie, he might scare them."

The one making Sarah a them was just pulling up. Michael stepped out of his car looking just as confused as Sarah. "Wells?"

"You?" Sarah said as she charged at him. "Did you do this? Is this your fault?"

"No, I didn't do anything but follow some weird creepy lady with scary authorization levels who ordered me to be here, right here, right now." Michael replied.

When the door to the dilapidated structure behind them squeaked open both of them jumped before turning to see a woman around their age with unnatural red hair, wearing jeans and War of the Worlds t-shirt step out and smile at them. "Hello children! Welcome to the best damn job you'll ever have."

Michael looked at Sarah just as she turned to look at him and then they both looked at the young woman.

"I'm Claudia Donavan and I'll be your tour guide." Claudia continued. "Keep hands and feet inside the ride, seriously don't touch the bombs on the walls, and lets get this origination underway." She stepped aside and motioned for the two to come in. Neither moved. "Oh come on, I'm not trying to lure you to your deaths, seriously this is legit." They still didn't move. "Please?"

"What is this place?" Michael asked.

"That is a good question Mikey." Claudia said cheerfully. "Come inside and I'll explain everything. I promise. You and Sarah are going to love this! You can't be any more cool than this."

There was something about the woman that Sarah felt oddly comforted by. Something that told her that she could trust her. "I hope you have a lot of answers because I have a lot of questions."

"Of course you do Sarah." Claudia said with a smile.

Since Sarah was following Claudia inside Michael followed Sarah. As they made their way through a long white tunnel he looked around, taking in the structure. "You said something about bombs?"

Claudia nodded and pointed out the bombs that lined the umbilicus. "It's a just in case measure."

"Just in case of what?" He asked as Claudia's eye was scanned and she pushed open the door.

"Oh lots of things." Claudia answered. "Vengeful mad men, crazy ex-agents, rouge artifacts, pissed off parents."

Sarah looked at the office they were now in. It was cluttered, a mix and match of everything under the sun. It was modern and out of date all at once. It was contradictory and complementary at the same time, and it made Sarah smile. That smile faulted when she stepped out onto the catwalk outside the office. Laid out before her was an endless expanse of space, rows and rows of shelves and miles and miles of areas, full of, well, stuff.

"Welcome kiddies to Warehouse 13." Claudia said proudly. "Affectionately known as the world's attic."

"What is all of that?" Sarah asked as she tried to take it all in, but it was rather impossible to do. The only way to explain it was, staggering.

"Stuff." Claudia replied. "Stuff with really powerful mojo that we go out and find and bring here before it can do bad bad things." She smiled at the look of awe on the faces of their new agents. "I know it's a lot to take in, but come on, I'll show you around explain what I can and then you two can get settled into your new home."

"New home?" Sarah asked.

"Leena's, we all live there." Claudia replied. "Well, not all of us. Artie lives here. We'll get into it I promise. Come on, I can't wait to show you everything."


	5. Chapter 4

They sat around a table in the sunroom of the bed and breakfast Claudia had sent them to the night before after showing them around the Warehouse. It had been a very overwhelming experience, finding out about the role the Warehouse played and the truth about artifacts. And yet it had been exciting and thrilling as well, a promise of grand adventure like in the stories her Mum use to tell her when she was girl. It was the cases that didn't make any sense that always gave Sarah a thrill, but tracking down magically empowered items like a paintbrush that turns you into a cartoon or a brooch that makes you think you're Anne Bolin, is a little out there even for her. She'd spent the night laying on the bed in the room she was given trying to process it all and wishing she could call her mothers or Chris and talk it all out, but Claudia kept making it very clear that this was all super secret, so she couldn't talk to anyone. She'd thought about talking to Michael, but she figured he would be just as overwhelmed as she was.

Once everyone was up and gathered around the table Leena served coffee, tea, and pastries. Sarah had been both surprised and comforted that the tea was one of her Mum's favorites, and had decided to have that over her normal morning coffee. Just the smell of the strong black tea helped her to relax and clear her head enough to listen to Claudia and the man she introduced as Steve Jinks. Seeing him had cleared a bit of Sarah's memory, she recalled how he'd been there to take the ring, and how he'd shot them with some strange weapon. Needless to say Jinks was not one of her favorite people at the moment.

"Ok, so let me see if I got this right." Sarah said after listening for a while. "The ring that Jasper Keats was wearing, the one I took off his finger, once belonged to B.F. Skinner, the psychiatrist, and it was somehow infused with the ability to project emotions?"

Claudia nodded. "It kind of reads the intentions of whoever has it and projects the proper emotions. Keats wanted people out of his way so it projected fear and panic, and when you touched it, you wanted everyone to be ok so it projected calm and security."

"Last night you said a lot of the time using an artifact has some nasty side effects." Michael said while trying to get his mind around all of this. "Is Sarah alright?"

"With an artifact like the ring, the negative effects of using it come with long term use." Leena explained. She looked at Sarah in a way that made the young woman squirm a little and then smiled, "Sarah's fine."

"Of course she is." Artie said as he came lumbering into the room, cane clacking on the hardwood. Despite his age he was still as active as he could be and still very much in charge. "Now, can we get on with what we're all here for?" He dropped some folders onto the table. "First case, three students at a high school in New Jersey have fallen into a coma, and the doctors have no clue as to way." Artie went over the details with them. Claudia pulled out a Tesla and he explained it to them, then she pulled out a can of goo, and he explained that. He gave them a Farnsworth, their plane tickets, and he gave Sarah a new badge.

"What is this?" Sarah asked as her thumb ghosted over the new gold Secret Service badge. "I have a badge, an MI5 badge."

"You're not MI5 anymore." Artie told her. "Officially on paper you're now a Secret Service agent, but what you really are, is a Warehouse agent."

He didn't give her a chance to argue. They had a plane to catch and he all but shoved them out the door after that. While Michael drove them to the airport Sarah couldn't stop looking at the new badge, her thumb rubbing it until the metal was warm.

"You ok?" Michael asked his new partner. "You're awfully quiet and haven't bashed Americans once since we got here."

"I'm fine." Sarah replied after a moment. "Overwhelmed." She smiled softly before admitting. "My Mom was Secret Service, before she and my Mum were married, before they moved to London."

"Is that why you joined MI5?" Michael asked. "Following in her footsteps?"

Sarah smiled a little more as she gave a slight nod. "Partly." Finally taking her eyes off the badge she turned to look at him. "I suppose it makes sense. MI5 isn't going to mean much if most of our cases are here."

"Secret Service isn't so bad." Michael told her with a smile. "My Dad's Secret Service."

Hazel eyes sparkled as Sarah said, "Do you think that's a coincidence?"

"Who knows?" Michael replied. "I have a feeling things in this job aren't going to make a whole lot of sense. A coincidence could be just that or it could be some magic gumball once own by someone I've never heard of."

Sarah nodded her head in agreement. They really did have no clue as to what they were getting into. Then she looked at him and asked, "You don't really think a gumball could be an artifact do you?"

At first everything went just like any other case. They gathered information, talked to witnesses, bounced around ideas about what could be happening. They called in on the Farnsworth to update Artie, who was not amused by Sarah's comment about her iPhone doing the whole video chat thing, only in color.

"I think you hurt his feelings." Michael said as he put the device pack in his pocket.

"I was simply making a harmless observation." Sarah said with a soft huff.

Michael laughed.

It was far from an easy first case. At first there didn't seem to be a connection between the victims and while they were figuring things out two more kids fell into a coma. Michael discovered that he didn't like teenagers and the more flustered he got with them the more amused Sarah became. Sarah was finally able to get one of the students to talk to her, which lead to them finding out that the one thing all the victims had in common was pissing off a girl named Tina. Following this lead turned up a small ornate box that had once belonged to a female mob enforcer who kept the names of her hits in the box. Tina had discovered that if she put the names of the people who pissed her off in the box, they went into a coma, so she was using it to get back at them. The girl gave new meaning to the term mean girl. Once the box was neutralized the victims started to come around, and with no apparent lasting effects. Sarah was use to handing things over to police for arrest, but Michael was uncomfortable with just walking away once the artifact was recovered. He wanted to arrest the girl, to hold her responsible, but Sarah reminded him that that wasn't his job anymore, and that he needed to let the other authorities handle it. Michael pouted but not for long. They hadn't been back at the Warehouse a day before Artie was sending them to Vancouver to recover Shirley Temple's hair rollers.

They had case after case, which hadn't left Sarah with much time to call her mothers. She sent them texts, and emails, and there were a couple of five-minute phone calls but nothing like the long conversations they use to have. Being busy with her new job was only a small reason why Sarah wasn't making more of an effort to talk to her parents. Another part of it was that Sarah was seriously home sick and missing her family terribly, and talking to them only made that worse. Another part of her avoiding anything drawn out was because she didn't know how to explain that this assignment wasn't temporary, that at least for now and the foreseeable future she would be living in Leena's B&B in the middle of nowhere U.S.A. Though her mothers were more than supportive and encouraging about her and Chris going out into the world and making lives for themselves, there was always something in her Mum's eyes, a deep sadness that being apart from them brought on, that Sarah just couldn't face. It had been a very small factor in choosing the branch of the inelegance service that was strictly U.K. over the one that was global, not that that choice matter much now.

They'd been working their latest case for little more than a day, and over that day Sarah's phone would not stop ringing, no matter how many times she sent it to voice mail. Michael rolled his eyes when Sarah's phone went off yet again. "Just answer the damn thing."

Sarah groaned. She knew if she didn't answer it her mothers wouldn't stop ringing her and if she turned her phone off Claudia would get pissy. With her back pushed up against the yellowish cream-colored wall of the nursing home she and Michael were in she pressed the phone to her ear, "Hello? Hi Mom, no, now's really not a good time. I'm kind of…"

A bolt of lightening whizzed over their heads, sending them both for cover.

"Oy!" She yelled at the old man pointing a walking stick at them. "Rude! Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

"Don't really think he cares, Sar." Michael said as he pointed the Tesla only to miss.

The walking stick belonged to Roy Sullivan; he'd been a park ranger and still held the world's record for being struck by lightening and surviving. It had somehow ended up in the hands of a pensioner in Long Beach who made Artie seem cheerful and bright. With her Mom still on the phone Sarah snatched the Tesla. "Give me that! You suck with that thing. You stick to the real gun and let me use this." Then she shoved the phone at him. "Here, talk to my Mom."

Michael looked at the phone like it was going to bite him, while Sarah moved into a position that would be better for taking down the old geezer trying to fry them. Michael held the phone to his ear and said, "Um, Sarah said Mom with an o, so, um, hello Mrs. Bering? Um, no ma'am, she's a little busy right now."

There was a flash of lightening and a few seconds later Sarah's voice, "Knock that off you crinkled old wanker!" The next flash of light was colored differently meaning it came from the Tesla.

"No ma'am Mrs. Bering," Michael said into the phone. "She's fine, she's just a little cranky is all."

There was another flash of Tesla energy and then a soft thud. A moment later Sarah returned with the walking stick in one purple-gloved hand and the Tesla in the other. She shoved the walking stick at Michael. "Do something with that." Then she took her phone back. "Ok, I got a few minutes, what's up?"

Michael looked up at his partner, over at the old man sprawled out on the floor, and then back at his partner and smiled. "You're a dangerous woman, Sar. Remind me never to piss you off."

Sarah smiled at him as she continued to talk to her Mom while walking off towards the front doors, leaving Michael to spray down the walking stick in purple goo.

"I don't like it." Myka said to her wife after talking to their daughter. "Something doesn't feel right about this."

"How so my love?" Helena asked as she watched Myka pacing the room. To be honest they were both more than a little worried, but neither wanted to voice what they were both thinking.

Myka turned to face her wife and sighed softly. "She won't say where in the U.S. she is, the only thing we know about her new partner is his first name, and she refuses to talk to us for more than ten minutes. It feels way to familiar."

Helena rose from where she'd been sitting, closed the distance between her and Myka, and than took the other woman into a loose but comforting embrace. "I'm sure it isn't what you're thinking, darling." She smiled reassuring at Myka before adding, "But it does sound a bit like a puzzle."

Myka returned her wife's smile. "And we don't love a good puzzle."

Several days later Sarah nearly slumped back against a stack of shelves after ending the call she was on. Luckily Michael grabbed her before she could. They hadn't been with the Warehouse long but they'd been there long enough to know not to let things touch them. "Hey careful, you ok?"

"Yeah." Sarah said as she slid her phone into her pocket. She was feeling the oddest mix of relief and disappointment. "I guess my mothers aren't come to the States after all. Something's come up and they can't make it."

"You really can't lie to them can you?" Michael asked as he sat on the step of the ladder they were using.

Sarah shook her head. "It's not about lying to them. They understand that I can't always talk about my work."

"Then what is it?" He asked gently.

"It's this place." Sarah said, indicating the Warehouse. "A place like this, full of stuff like this, they'd love it. How do I not share this with them?"

Michael nodded in understanding. "My Dad would be a big kid in a place like this."

Sarah laughed. "Just like you."

"I said I was sorry." Michael said with a pout. "I didn't know touching the little army man would suck us into reliving World War Two."

The memory made her glare at him. "Do you know how many men pinched my ass in that RAF hospital I was stuck in? I think I still have bruises."

"Hey hey kiddies." Claudia's voice suddenly called out from the squeaky speakers. "We have a ping juniors, come up to the office."

"Why does she use various forms of children when addressing us?" Sarah asked as she and Michael set aside inventory to make their way back up to the office. "Isn't she like our age?"

Michael shrugged. "I try not to analyze the people we work with. It just makes my head hurt when I do."

As soon as they walked into the office Claudia was talking. "Alright tiny tots, this is a priority one ping, we have a suspected time artifact. Anything dealing with time normally turns out to have a seriously nasty effect so be very, very, very careful."

"What are we looking for?" Michael said as he looked over the folder he'd been handed. "A clock, a watch?"

"Don't know." Claudia answered. "Good luck."

"Well that was helpful." Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "And how do we know it's a time artifact?"

"It's been night for nearly forty-eight hours." The young redhead answered. "And no I'm not talking about the South Pole, this is happening in Wewoka Oklahoma. Now, off you go, snag, bag and tag young padawans."

When Artie walked into the office half an hour after Michael and Sarah were on their way to Oklahoma he caught sight of the ping on the screen and read it over. "Claudia." He said in that unhappy voice that was slightly different from his normal unhappy voice. "Since you are here and I just left Steve in the Warehouse, who did you send on this case?"

"Mikey and Sarah." Claudia answered.

"Did you notice the note on this ping?" Artie asked as he looked at the young woman.

Claudia didn't replied.

Artie took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The note that says this artifact was on the top one hundred most wanted list for Warehouse 12." He put his glasses back on to glare at the young woman. "You sent them to investigate a time artifact wanted by Warehouse 12?" He saw the look on the young woman's face. He knew her so well; she was after all the closest thing he had to a daughter. "And you did it on purpose."

"Oh don't you give me that look!" Claudia scolded while snatching up a clipboard and wiggling it around. "There are things on this innovatory list you gave them that were SB&Ted by Myka, H.G., and Pete. And don't give me that look either! I'm not the only one who thinks it was crap that the family was slip up!"

Artie sighed. "It was for the best."

"Bull old man and you know it." Claudia replied before tossing the clipboard down and disappearing Mrs. F style.

"Not any less annoying when you do it." Artie grumbled at thin air.


	6. Chapter 5

It was the oddest sensation to drive across the town line in the middle of the day and be engulfed by night. It was as if nighttime had spread out from city limit to city limit and went no further. Standing on the out side of the town line, looking up, they saw a night sky stretch up into the furthest reaches of the atmosphere. Doing that from inside Wewoka they saw daytime do the same thing. The two Warehouse agents looked at each other and agreed in unison that it was freaky. Sarah and Michael made their way to the town's center where they of course ran into other agency agents. The lead FBI agent wasn't impressed with having Michael there, and they weren't impressed with Sarah's Secret Service status. They did however respond when she explained she was formerly with British Military Intelligence, MI5 and MI6 made most Americans think of James Bond, and if that made Sarah's life easier she was fine with it. Telling them she was MI5 seemed to back up their claims of having special skill sets that would prove valuable, and they were given free rein to conduct their investigation. Sarah was looking forward to telling Artie that her MI5 status did in fact pull weight after all.

They started asking questions, trying to find a place to start looking for the artifact. What they found out was that no one knew anything other than waking up and finding it still dark outside. They did get a small lead when someone mentioned an older woman who'd just come back from a long trip to Europe. They were given the address of the woman's business and home, which were the same small building, so they figured it was as good a place as any to start looking. Since the local officials and police had moved people into safe zones, most of the buildings and homes were empty. Sarah easily picked the lock on the front door of the business and they slipped inside easily.

"I've always meant to ask," Michael said, his voice a soft whisper. "How do you even know how to do that?"

Sarah smiled proudly and shrugged. "My Mum taught me." Clicking on her flashlight she ran the beam of light over surfaces and walls. "You have got to be kidding me. It's a bloody clock shop!"

"Where else would you find a time artifact?" Michael said with a snort.

"We don't even know it's a clock." Sarah said as she continued looking things over.

"We don't know it isn't." Michael pointed out.

Sarah sighed. "I guess we could purple haze everything until something sparks."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Michael said as he pulled out an aerosol can full of neutralizer goo.

They made their way through the shop and nothing sparked so they decided to head upstairs to the apartment. Again Sarah picked the lock. At the stop of the stairs she noticed a light was on in a room down the hall. She singled to Michael and they drew their weapons, she had the Tesla and he had the handgun. They crept down the hall, took up positions on either side of the door, and then Michael counted to three silently before pushing the door open. They moved inside together, perfectly in sync, weapons drawn to find the room empty. They both looked confused because they could have sworn they'd heard movement inside. They both scanned the empty room before looking at each other with baffled looks.

"You heard something to didn't you?" Michael asked.

Sarah nodded. "I did." Since the room seemed empty they both lowered their weapons, but kept them at the ready. "The hell?"

The door behind them suddenly clicked close. "The hell indeed young lady."

Sarah's eyes went huge as she spun around only to find herself face to face with her mother and a drawn Tesla. "Mum?"

"Sarah." Helena replied, looking more than a little cross.

Then things got a little weird as their conversation suddenly happened in unison.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why do you have a Tesla?"

"What's going on?"

There was a long pause and then, two sets of eyes wide, and voices again in sync. "You work for the Warehouse!?"

"Ok that's freaky, creepy, and weird." Michael said as his eyes darted between the two women. "Stop it."

They did stop. Helena and her daughter just stood there looking at each other for several long moments. Myka's concerns had been warranted after all. Helena shook her head as she put her Tesla away. "Your Mother thought this was possible. She had a feeling that this is what was going on with you. But I didn't think they would keep this from us. It appears I was wrong."

Sarah looked as if she'd been hit in the gut with a two-by-four. "Mom? You mean, you both work for the Warehouse? You're, what, you're agents?"

Michael cleared his throat. "Can we do this later?" He asked carefully, not really wanting to poke the angry English women with the preverbal stick. "We kind of have an artifact to find."

There was another long moment of silence spent glaring before Helena finally looked away from her daughter and nodded. "Yes, you're right, of course, Michael." She looked him over; this was the first time meeting him in person and there was something oddly familiar about him. "I assume you came up from the shop and since you're here I will also assume nothing downstairs was the artifact."

Michael held up the spray can. "No sparks."

"Nothing up here either." Helena informed them. "I do have a theory. One I was working on the last time I tried to find this particular artifact. I do hope you aren't afraid of heights Agent…" She paused, "I apologize Michael. I don't know your last name. It, among other things, hasn't come up in my short conversations with Sarah."

"Lattimer, ma'am." Michael answered.

Helena's eyes went wide. "Lattimer? Michael Lattimer? Well, there it is than."

"What?" Sarah said, finally speaking up. Until that moment she'd just been standing there staring at her mother completely lost and confused. Her mother, the author, was a Warehouse 13 agent? Both of her mothers were Warehouse 13 agents? They knew? They knew about all of this and never said a word? "What is it?"

"Nothing darling." Helena replied. "Off we go. Must get this lovely little town their days back."

"No." Sarah said as she grabbed her mother's arm. "No more of whatever game we're all playing. That look just now when Mikes said his name, what was that about?"

A soft smile appeared on Helena's face. "Mikes?"

"It's what my Dad calls me." Michael answered, a little embarrassed. "Sarah's kind of picked up on using it."

Helena looked at the boy again and yes it was Pete she saw in him. "Do you know for whom you're named?"

"Yeah, kind of, one of my Dad's old partners I think." Michael replied, growing every more confused about this whole scene. "Why?"

Helena nodded, her smile warm and affectionate, like she was smiling at someone she cared about. "He used to call her Mykes too."

"Who?" Michael asked.

If Sarah's eyes got any wider she'd start tearing skin. "Mom?"

Helena shrugged and nodded at the same time. "I can only assume of course but, my wife's name is Myka, she and Pete and I worked together for a very long time."

It hit him as hard as it had Sarah a moment before, like a two-by-four in the gut.

"We will deal with all of this later." Helena said firmly, shaking the children from their shock. "Artifact first, family drama later." But even as she said it she closed the distance between herself and her daughter, wrapping her arms around Sarah in a tight embrace. "I have missed you my precious girl."

Sarah smiled despite feeling a little embarrassed that Michael was watching this scene, and the overwhelming emotions she was having over this newest bit of truth. "I missed you too, Mum."

Michael watched with relief as everything Sarah had been carrying around with her since they started working for the Warehouse fell away from her like falling armor as she hugged her mother. It made him smile.

Helena pulled away and beaming brightly at her little girl. "Righty-ho then, lets see about finding this troublesome bother of an artifact, shall we?"

The two younger agents nodded their agreement and followed Helena back to the base camp where the other authorities were working. Helena scanned the people there for a moment before walking up to the man she identified as the police chief. "Excuse me." She said politely while showing her badge. "Agent Wells, Secret Service. I have a question or two."

The kind of portly man looked confused as he pointed to Sarah. "I thought she was Agent Wells from Secret Service."

"Indeed she is." Helena said brightly. "And doesn't she make a mother proud." She gushed before asking, "Tell me Chief, how long has your town clock been damaged?"

The question came as a surprise but the Chief answered, "For quite a few years actually. It was damaged in a storm and sat busted for a long time. We just got the right parts for it a few weeks ago from Germany or someplace, and someone in city maintenance just got to fixing maybe three days ago."

"And for how long did it work?" Helena asked next.

"Couple of hours." The Chief said.

Helena smiled. "Thank you. Oh, one last thing, how do we access the tower?"

With all the information she needed in hand, Helena, with Michael and Sarah on her heels, headed for the town clock. After sending Michael for a can of goo the three made the long climb up the old wooden stairs to the top. Sarah was spilt between still being utterly stunned over her mother's sudden presence and revelation, and trying not to feel to jittery and queasy as they climbed the creaky old steps.

"You alright?" Michael asked softly after noticing the slight tremble in the hand Sarah was using to hold the railing.

Sarah nodded. "I don't like these kinds of stairways."

"Why?" He asked.

"Her brother once told her that if she stepped to hard on old wooden steps she'd crash through." Helena jumped in. "They've made her uneasy ever since."

Sarah nodded confirmation of that. She loved her brother but sometimes Christopher could be a real prick.

"She'll be alright at the top." Helena reassured, touched by the concern Michael showed for her daughter.

True to her mother's word once they in the clockwork room of the tower Sarah was fine. She looked around at all the gears and cogs and sighed. "I guess we purple haze it all."

"Don't be silly darling." Helena said as she waved off the idea. "That's a waste of goo."

"Then how do we figure out what the artifact is?" Sarah asked.

Helena smiled. It was the same smile she'd used when Sarah was a child and she was trying to teach the girl how to tie her shoes or read and write Latin. "Observation and know how my love."

Sarah watched as her mother, who was so clearly not just an author and amateur tinkerer, began examining the complex cogs and wheels and gears of the clock. After several long minutes just as Sarah was about to say something Helena asked for the small satchel she'd been carrying, and Sarah handed it to her. As Helena rummaged around in the bag Sarah's eyes popped wide again. "You have an Artie bag!" She exclaimed. "How do you have an Artie bag?"

"It was a gift." Helena answered as she pulled out a couple of tools. "From Artie in fact."

"Of course it was." Sarah replied.

The tone made Helena look over her shoulder at the girl. As Sarah crossed her arms and let herself sort of fall back against the banister behind her the older Wells sighed. Yes, there it was, the early signs her girl was about to have a snit fit. Returning her focuses to what she was doing she removed several parts before asking for the goo can. "Do cover your eyes darlings."

Of course they both shielded their eyes but watched as Helena put a cog into the goo and it sparked. "That was it?" Michael asked.

"That was it." Helena answered as she put the clock back together with a few things from her bag so it would work properly.

Sarah looked impressed as well as surprised. "How did you know?"

"Many years of experience." Helena said with a soft smile. As she packed up her things and led the younger agents down the stairs she explained, "I thought it might have something to do with a 16th century French astrologer who thought his work mapping the stars was more important than the lives and well being of those around him. His obsessive need for more night created the cog."

"You're Mum's kind of cool." Michael whispered behind Sarah as Helena continued to lecture on how to detect an artifact without resorting to spraying everything down with goo.

"Shut up." Sarah grumbled. She'd always been proud of her parents, she still was, but now they had this secret side to them that she didn't know what to do with.

With the artifact in hand the three agents headed for the airport. While she followed behind the car with Michael and Sarah, Helena called first Myka and than Pete. When his voice came over the line she couldn't help but smile. "Hello darling. Yes. It's good to hear your voice as well, Pete. Well, that depends on how you define wrong. Yes, Leena's, your plane will be waiting at the airport. See you soon, dear."

"You want to talk about it?" Michael asked as he drove.

"It being the fact that a whole hell of lot of people are lying to a whole hell of lot more people?" Sarah asked, nearly in full snit mode. "No one telling us our parents were, are, agents. No one telling them we're agents. You saw her, Mikes. My Mum's amazing. No one told us, told me. How do we work with, for, people who lie to us like that?"

"I'm sure there are reasons." Michael said which got him one hell of a glare from his partner. "I don't think she's any more happy about this than you are."

Sarah wasn't sure if she should smirk or flinch. "This could get ugly. My Mum, she can be really protective of my brother, and me and with good reason. The longer she's calm and sweet and polite, the worse her final blow up will be."

When the umbilicus door opened Claudia looked up and smiled as Sarah walked in with the goo can on her shoulder. "Did you get it?"

"Yeap, we got it." Sarah answered.

"Any trouble?" The redhead asked.

"Oh, yeah, trouble, big trouble." Sarah said nodding her head. "Run. Hide."

"Why?" Artie asked, suddenly very worried.

Helena smiled brightly as she stepped into the room moments after Michael and Sarah had. "Hello everyone."

"H.G!" Claudia squealed and launched herself at the slightly taller woman.

Helena couldn't keep the smile from her lips as she hugged the spunky young woman. "Hello darling. You set this up didn't you, love?"

"You know it." Claudia admitted.

"H.G." Artie said with a hidden smile.

"Arthur." Helena replied as she gave the man a soft glare. When he opened his mouth to say something she held up her hand to stop him, and tool several steps closer so she was towering over him. "I do not wish to hear excuses or reasons why, Artie. This isn't something that just happened to happen. Warehouse agents are watched, they're vetted down to the smallest minute aspects of their lives, and the process is a long one. Not once, not once did you or anyone else," Her gaze flicked over to Claudia but only for a moment before returning to stare down Artie. "Even hint that you were looking at my child! Myka, a bloody Regent for heaven's sake, didn't know you people were going to recruit our daughter!"

"We didn't know." Artie confessed as he kept eye contact with Helena. "Not until she told us, not until she was about to bring them in."

"Where is she?" Helena demanded.

"She'll meet us at Leena's." Artie said with a soft gulp. "Later. After. It's been awhile. She'll want to give us time."

The tension between her mother and Artie was making her nervous. She'd seen her Mum get protective before but there was something under the surface here that was almost frightening. Sarah stepped closer to Helena and put her hand on her mother's arm. "Mum."

Helena forced herself to relax. She stepped away from Artie and put her hand on top of Sarah's. "Than we should be off to Leena's. I'm sure Myka and Pete will be there by the time we arrive."

Artie swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. "Good thing I made cookies."


	7. Chapter 6

It had been a long time since he'd been there. Things were different and yet it was still Leena's bed and breakfast and it still felt very much like home. So much so that he hadn't even bothered to knock, he'd just let himself in. Of course Leena was there to greet him with a hug and there were a plate of cookies waiting. He didn't ask how she knew he was coming; he just figured Leena was being Leena. With a glass of milk in one hand and a cookie in the other Pete walked around the first floor taking it all in, reliving all his wonderful memories of living here and working at the Warehouse. Standing between the living room and sunroom he munched on his cookie and stared at the large round wooden table where they had their morning meetings and wondered why H.G. had called him there. What was going on? Was Myka alright? A knot twisted in his stomach but thinking about her didn't give him any vibes, so she had to be alright, right?

She watched him stuff half a cookie into his mouth before washing it down by chugging most of the milk in his glass. She smiled so bright her eyes lit up. She waited until he put the glass down on the table before speaking; she didn't want to startle him, he already had a bad habit of breaking kitchenware. Or at least he use to. "Pete."

He turned and there she stood smiling at him and it was like they'd been apart for a day, not separated by years. "Myka."

Myka laughed as Pete closed the distance between them in three long strides and then picked her up in a crushing hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him back just as fiercely. "It's good to see you Pete."

"I missed you, Mykes." Pete said as he let his face get smothered in the mass of dark curls her hair still was.

"I missed you too." She replied, letting the hug linger a little longer before finally pulling away.

Pete smiled at her. He took her in and smiled a little more. There was some gray in her curly hair, a little crinkle at the corners of her eyes, maybe a little more fluffy with age, but she was still Myka. Reaching out he brushed his fingertip over the gold Eye of Horus pinned to Myka's blouse. "You know Mom was so proud when you took her place."

"I was honored when she asked." Myka admitted softly.

He took half a step back as he admitted. "When H.G. called me I thought… I thought something happened to you."

"I'm sorry she scared you." Myka said sympathetically. "I don't think she quite knew how to put what's going on into words."

"H.G. Wells? At a loss for words?" Pete asked. Now he was starting to get a vibe. He'd been vibing a lot lately, normally after talking to his son, but what would Michael have to do with the Warehouse? "Ok this isn't going to be good is it? Mykes, what's going on?"

Myka sighed before asking him, "What do you know about the new agents?"

"Nothing." Pete told her. "I'm not a Regent. I don't get to know things. Heck, I know less now than I did before and that was never much."

"Apparently being a Regent doesn't always mean I get to know what's going on either." Myka said with anger lacing her voice. "At least before she recruited you Mrs. Fredrick went to Jane, talked to her, got her option, and yeah sure she went against Jane's wishes anyway, but at least she bothered to ask. We didn't even get that courtesy."

"Mykes, what are you talking about?" Pete asked, clearly confused.

"I think she's talking about us?" Michael said from the doorway.

Pete turned towards the sound of his son's voice and his jaw dropped open. Standing there with H.G., Artie, Claudia, and a rather pretty girl was his son. "Mikes?"

"Mikes?" Myka asked with a soft smile.

Pete turned his confused gaze to Myka. "Mykes?"

"Meet the Warehouse's newest agents." Myka said, a flash of anger and betrayal in her voice that made Helena come to stand with her wife, and Sarah take a step back. "Your son and our daughter."

"What?" Pete exclaimed. "Myka!"

"I didn't know." Myka told him.

Pete looked at everyone in the room before walking over to his son and asking, "You're a Warehouse agent? How? When?"

"A while?" Michael answered. The look he got from his dad said he needed to provide more than that so he added, "Since I got back from London and found Mrs. Fredrick sitting on my futon."

Pete gave it a moment of thought and then said, "London? You mean that case you worked with the snooty hot British chick? That was months ago!"

"You thought I was snooty?" Sarah said, finally speaking up after watching the scene unfold. She'd been trying to gage her mother's mood before drawing attention to herself and since everyone seemed focus on Michael she was willing to wait. Until now that is.

Claudia smirked. "He also thought you were hot."

"No argument there, have you seen my genetic pool?" Sarah said while waving a hand at her mothers. She knew her male genetic donor was related to her Mum, she and her brother had been told he was a cousin, which was kind of true, so as far as she was concerned she was as much from Helena's blood as Myka's. "But snooty! Really? Me?" She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Snooty, I'll give you snooty, next time someone tries to turn you into the bloody hound of Baskerville, I might just let them do it! Snooty. I'm not snooty! I'm English!"

Pete stared at the pretty young ranting woman while whispering, "Snooty hot British chick?"

Michael nodded while muttering, "Yeah, she's also kind of their kid."

Pete had kind of tuned out after hearing his son was an agent so the end of Myka's sentence had sounded like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon to him. Turning now to look at Myka and Helena, he caught them glaring at him. "Yours? She's yours?" They nodded at him and he turned to finally really look at Sarah. Now that he was paying attention he could see it, he could see them in her, and not just in her physical looks but her very presence. He smiled his biggest dopiest grin. "Wow, you two, she's beautiful."

"We think so." Helena said with a soft proud smile.

"Not making up for the snooty bit." Sarah protested.

"To be far my love you did refer to Michael as a chest thumping American cowboy with pretty eyes." Helena said, ratting her daughter out and evening the field a bit.

"Mum!" Sarah yelped with wide eyes.

Michael grinned in a way that really made him look like Pete. "You think my eyes are pretty?"

Sarah glared at him. "Shut up Lattimer."

"Oh!" Claudia squealed in delight. "This is so awesome! The family back together! The banter, the teasing, everyone in one room, well almost everyone, Jinksy is out on a mission, but still, here we are, happy and together again!"

"We're far from happy, Claudia." Myka reminded the younger woman. "After all these years we're right back to being pawns of the Warehouse? After everything we agreed to do, promises made, here we are anyway? No, no we're not happy at all." She walked over to Sarah and shook her head. "Them, I'm use to them lying and keep secrets, but you? Sarah."

Sarah dropped her head like a scolded child but before she could say a word Michael spoke up. "She wanted to tell you. She wanted nothing more than to share this with you, with both of you, but she didn't know she could, and she couldn't face telling one of you and not the other, she wouldn't put one of you in the position of keeping secrets from the other, and it's all been eating at her for weeks."

Sarah gave him a look of thanks for saying what she was struggling to put into words, and at the same time glared at him as if he were sharing a secret. "Didn't I say shut up Lattimer?"

Michael snorted. "When do I ever do that?"

"Good point." She replied, her look softening.

Myka took her daughter's face in her hands and made Sarah look at her. Eye to eye she could see the emotional storm Sarah had been wading through, was still wading through as she tried to deal with finding out that her mothers had a secret life behind her back. It wasn't Sarah she was angry with and she wasn't about to take it on her. Myka smiled at her little girl before wrapping her arms around Sarah in a hug. "I'm sorry sweetheart."

Sarah relaxed a great deal as she returned her mother's hug.

While Myka was reconnecting with her daughter Pete was getting himself caught up on what was happening, what had been happening. Clearly the parents were left out of all of this but what about Artie and Claudia? They'd been there when he'd found out about his own mother, why would they do that to Michael and to him again? He felt a little better when Artie explained that by the time they found out what was happening Michael and Sarah were practically on his doorstep.

Helena however took no comfort from that. "And when you did find out you still didn't feel the need to inform us?" She asked. "All these months that they've been here with you? Not a word?"

"They are not children who require permission from their parents, Agent Wells." Mrs. Fredrick said sternly from where she now stood. "Nor was it Arthur's or Claudia's choice to handle things the way they were handled. The choice to bring Michael and Sarah into the Warehouse was mine and mine alone."

"Ahh, that's not totally true, mostly but not totally." Claudia jumped in. Mrs. Fredrick gave her a dangerous look but she went on anyway. "Yeah, Mrs. F. does all the work but the Warehouse its self kind of guides her towards possible padawans. No, seriously," She said when Sarah rolled her eyes at the Star Wars reference. "It's almost like there's something in the blood, something special, that it picks up on."

Mrs. Fredrick sighed deeply. Claudia still had a lot to learn about being a Caretaker; she was far to open with information. "I am honestly surprised it took you this long to bring them in, Ms. Donavan."

Claudia shrugged. "I would have done it sooner if I could have. I wanted to tell them as soon as you told me."

"And you should have." Helena said with a slight edge to her voice that made Claudia look down at her feet.

"Before you recruited Pete you went to Jane and you talked to her about it." Myka said, cutting her wife off before Helena could get to upset and say things she would have trouble taking back, or before she could reveal things they'd have trouble explaining to Sarah. "Why didn't you show us the same respect?"

"Jane?" Michael said with a blink of surprise. "Grandma Jane? She's in on this too?"

"I do believe there is quite a lot we don't know about any of this, Michael." Sarah replied as she watched the people around them. The connections, the history between all these people, spread out in front of her like someone unrolling a dusty old map, and she found the sudden release of dust to be rather irritating.

Mrs. Fredrick stiffened a little before she reluctantly answered, "I meant no disrespect Myka. However, I knew, given H.G's past and your bond with her, neither of you would have heard me out once I mentioned Sarah's name. You wouldn't have given me the chance to talk to you about it so I didn't bother. I did what needed to be done knowing there would be consequences and accepting that something like this would eventually happen."

"Wait," Sarah said, stepping closer to her mothers and Mrs. Fredrick. Something about that statement felt funny to her. "What do you mean because of my mother's past?"

Helena looked hurt, angry, even betrayed that this would still be an issue. "She was afraid I would react badly to the thought of you in danger because of how I reacted to the loss of your sister, darling."

Now Sarah's eyes were the ones flushed with anger. "You're holding my mother's grief over Christina against her? Why? What does that have to do with me being here?"

"You know about Christina?" Artie asked softly.

"Of course I do." Sarah replied. "Why wouldn't I know about her? She's my sister."

Very old pain flickered in Helena's eyes as she gave them all a look that said Sarah and her brother knew about Christina but did not know exact details. It was hard to hide it from them when her beautiful little gifts from Myka would ask why sometimes Mummy looked so very sad over something that should have been simple and happy like watching her small children splash in the puddles outside their garden gate.

Sarah watched the room carefully, her eyes narrowing as she tried to understand the silent conversion. "Was Christina killed because of the Warehouse?"

The question seemed to shock everyone in the room back to the present. "What?" Myka replied. "No, baby, no, it was a robbery gone horribly wrong, you know that."

"Then why is everyone acting like they were scared to talk to you and Mum about me joining the Warehouse?" Sarah asked. "You're a Regent apparently and Mum's an agent, clearly you both have a long history here, and the Warehouse is important to you, yes?" Myka and Helena both nodded confirmation. "So why all the cloak and dagger? Why am I suddenly sensing distrust between all of you?"

"Honestly kid?" Claudia cut in yet again. "You're Mum's got a scary side."

"I once snuck off to Amsterdam for a weekend when I was sixteen with my girlfriends without telling them." Sarah replied as she looked over at the woman. "Trust me, I know my Mum has a scary side." Turning back to look at her mothers and Mrs. Fredrick she said, "Why does my mother's grief scare you so badly you'd leave them both out of something that apparently you didn't need to leave them out of?"

"It was really powerful grief." Claudia said. "Earth shattering grief." Everyone in the room gave her a harsh look. "What?"

Mrs. Fredrick let a moment pass before directing her words at Myka and Helena. "I have my reasons for doing what I did and I don't have to explain myself further to any of you." Myka started to speak up and she shook her head. "Not even to a Regent. I choose them, and I asked them to join, why? Because they belong here, just as each of you belonged here."

"People die here!" Helena said angrily, fearfully.

"People die everywhere, Mum." Sarah replied honestly. "Hamish went to the mall with his mates to buy a new video game and got hit by a bus. People die. MI5 wasn't exactly teaching nursery school, you know."

"Yeah, besides, people don't always stay dead." Claudia added. "Artie went to ashes in the umbilicus and he came back. Jinksy's had that forced heart thing and he came back. H.G. blew up with the Warehouse and she…"

Sarah spun around with wide eyes to look at the other woman. "What do you mean she blew up?"

"Uh, I, um, see, um, yeah, soooo why didn't you tell Pete about Michael? He's way less scary than H.G." Claudia said, changing the subject though Sarah, Helena and Myka continued to glare at her.

Pete had spent this whole time silently fuming. He listened, and he didn't like what he was hearing one bit. He was not ok with the way Myka and Helena were treated in this. It was far harsher than the disrespect shown to him. "She didn't say anything to me because a long time ago I asked her to never come for one of my kids."

"What?" Michael said in surprise. "Why?"

"Because we were lucky." Pete told his son. "Me, Myka, H.G. even your Grandma, we were damn lucky. We were able to have lives away from the Warehouse. Most agents aren't that lucky. Most agents either die, go batshit crazy, or turn evil."

Claudia was about to say something but Artie put his hand over her mouth to shut her up, knowing damn well that whatever she was going to say it was probably linked to Helena. Probably about how they didn't always stay crazy and evil.

"Artie seems fine." Michael pointed out. "And Claudia, and Steve."

"Seven people out of hundreds." Pete replied. "Don't get my wrong. My years here, working and living with all of them, were some of the best years of my life, and I wouldn't trade in those years for anything. I wouldn't change a thing because I got to be with some pretty awesome people, but the risks, a life full of secrets, it's not what I wanted for you or your brothers."

A long uncomfortable silence lingered in the room after that. Each person lost in his or her own thoughts and emotions. Old wounds were opened, and the pain from them needed to be faced and dealt with. Helena had blamed her work with Warehouse 12 for playing a small part in Christina's death and now here she was facing the possibility that Sarah could be lost to her as well. Myka had struggled for a long time with the secrets and lies that kept cropping up early on in her time with the Warehouse, Artie's lies, Mrs. Fredrick's secrets, the Regents surreptitious ways. It had made it hard for her to trust her work and the people she was sharing her life with, and now here it all was again, even as a Regent how much did she really matter? Maybe he had been upgraded to a bishop or a rook, his son replacing him as a pawn, but Pete once again found himself feeling like a piece in someone else's game. Like his fate, his destiny and now that of his son's weren't up to them.

When the feeling in the room became too much, when she felt like she was choking on the tension, Sarah spoke up. "Were we picked because of who are parents are?"

"No." Mrs. Fredrick answered. "Of course not."

"Then why us?" Michael asked. "Why me and Sarah? Why take the risk? You've really pissed off people you clearly care about, hurt them, I think unintentionally, but still you've hurt them. For me? For Sarah? Why?"

Mrs. Fredrick actually smiled. "Because you are extraordinary." There was a flicker of something in her ancient eyes. Awe? Fondness? It was hard to tell, but it was a emotion, a positive one. "A Warehouse agent isn't chosen simply because they have skills, abilities, or talents that we might need, though those things are helpful factors, no, they are chosen because they are special. Every single one of you I picked because you out shine all others. And I will not apologize for bringing any of you here because wither you are willing to admit it or not this is where you all belong."

"Should have thought that twenty-some years ago." Claudia blurted out. "Could have avoided all of this if you made different choices back than."

Michael and Sarah looked at each other before Michael asked, "What happened twenty-some years ago?"

"Another time darling." Helena answered. Myka had been holding her hand in a comforting death grip that had helped to calm her emotions. Myka's touch had always had that effect on her. "I think we've all had quiet enough for now."

Everyone nodded in agreement but the youngest two in the room. Emotions were still running high, tempers were still flared, but what was done was done, and now they had to focus on moving on. Sarah and Michael wanted to keep hashing it out, but the others needed a breather. Leena stepped forward and smiled softly at everyone. She looked over to Myka, Helena and Pete. "I've made up rooms for you upstairs. I'd offer your old ones but Sarah and Mike took them."

"Still don't understand why you get the full sized bed." Michael grumbled, trying to break some of the tension. "And the bigger room."

"Because I have more stuff." Sarah said, falling into their common, and comfortable agreement.

"You have more clothes, clothes isn't stuff." Michael argued back.

Artie groaned. "And there they go again."

Pete put his arm around his son's shoulder and laughed. "It could be worse."

"How could it be worse?" Michael asked.

Pete looked right at Myka, Helena, and Claudia as he said, "She and her girlfriend and their kid sister could use up all their own closest space and one morning you wake up to find more of their clothes in your closest than your own."

"You were rather cute wearing my waistcoat." Helena teased.

Pete pouted. "You made me think I was getting fat."

Claudia was smiling. Yeah there was a lot of drama and issues to work out, but she had her family back, and this time she wasn't letting them go. Not without a fight.


	8. Chapter 7

Even after Mrs. Fredrick left the tension in the B&B lingered. Claudia wanted to stay and force everyone to make up, but Artie drug her back to the Warehouse so Sarah and Michael could have some time with their parents. There was a lot for them all to talk about, and he knew that at least for Sarah months of separation to get over. She was after all one of the younger agents the Warehouse has ever had, second only to Claudia herself, at least in terms of resent history. That had in fact fueled Claudia's desire to find a way around Mrs. Fredrick's "I will tell them in do time" bullshit and pull Helena and Myka and Pete into what was going on. She remembered how much she'd needed them back in the day and knew their kids were feeling the same way.

After Leena slipped off to leave them alone Helena suggested that Sarah go for a walk with her and Myka. Sarah agreed with a gentle nod of her head and Helena slipped her hand into her daughter's.

Even the most delicate of talks had come easily between them, but now as the three of them walked the grounds of the B&B no one knew what to say or how to start. Sarah was still processing all of this, while her mothers wondered just how much to tell her and when. It was Myka who finally decided someone needed to push this boulder down the hill and get things rolling. "So," She said softly. "First artifact?"

Sarah blinked as if she couldn't make sense of her mother's question and then answered, "A hit woman's jewelry box. Putting someone's name in it made them fall into a coma."

"Not bad." Myka said with a smile. "Mine was an ornate hair comb that belonged to Lucrezia Borgia, it imbedded her traits onto the woman wearing it."

"Wasn't she crazy and rather murder originated?" Sarah asked as she thought back on what she knew of the Borgia family.

Myka nodded. "And had a weird thing for fire."

When Sarah turned to look at Helena the older Brit smiled. "Me next? Oh dear, first artifact, that is taxing the memory a bit." She had to think for a moment. "I do believe it was Isaac Newton's telescope."

Sarah looked between her mothers with a bit of awe in her hazel eyes. "If we hadn't just found De Vinci's paint set I'd be feeling really inadequate right now."

Myka smiled reassuringly while Helena chuckled softly and just like that the strain pulling at the three of them loosened and they each relaxed a little more. Reaching up Myka brushed at Sarah's hair as she said, "You must have so many questions." After Sarah nodded she said, "Go ahead and ask."

Where was she to start? She wanted to know everything, but after thinking for a moment Sarah asked, "Who are your Ones? I mean, obviously not each other, you already knew, so who did you pick?"

"I don't have a One." Myka admitted. "You're Mum and I always had each other so I didn't tell anyone else."

"Nor did I." Helena added.

"You never told Charles?" Myka asked her wife, a little surprised that in Helena's long career with the Warehouse she'd never shared it with anyone.

Helena looked horrified at the idea. "Oh heavens no! If I had told my brother about it all of London would have known by week's end. The only secrets he ever kept were the ones that kept him in the spot light."

Sarah made a mental note to ask for more details on her mother's brother later. Right now she had something more important to ask, "So why didn't you tell us? Why not use your Ones on me and Christopher?"

"Oh my precious girl." Helena said with a soft sigh as she stopped their slow walk so they could focus on each other while she spoke. "Because it would have been like inviting the moth into the flame."

Myka nodded her agreement at Helena's answer before explaining. "We knew that the Warehouse and its wonders would be far more than just where we worked, and telling you about it, it just felt as if we would have been tempting fate."

"And yet here I am anyway." Sarah pointed out. If she hadn't felt that her parents gave up a lot of things, gave up a lot of people, to shield them from the Warehouse Sarah might be more upset about her mothers' secret lives, but she wasn't. She wished they had told her, shared this with her, but she understood. She'd felt it herself that pull and dived, the desire to share and the need to protect. "Is this why you freaked out when I told you I'd applied to the intelligence service?"

"In part, yes." Helena admitted. She and Myka had always taught their children to seek out their own truths in life. They encouraged them and supported them, but when Sarah came to them and said she wanted to join MI5, neither had been very supportive about it at first. "We knew that you working in that field would heighten your chances of peaking interest, but it was also a much more dangerous line of work in general, as compared to say your brother's."

"Which one?" Sarah said with a huff. "His hot shot job designing the hottest new video games or his side business of single handedly rebuilding anything with an engine?"

"Your mother didn't mean it like that Sarah and you know it." Myka scolded. Apparently a little bitterness lingered when it came to them being far more supporting from the start with Christopher's choices. Myka knew they were good mothers, but she also knew they weren't perfect at it either. They'd made mistakes, but learned from them and made themselves better. "You've seen first hand the dangers that come with working with artifacts, with that side of human nature, can you really blame us for wanting to see you do something a little less risky?"

Helena smiled sweetly at her daughter as she teased, "You would have been a lovely nursery school teacher."

"Are you serious?" Sarah replied. "My only on the job injury so far was getting bit by a seven year old while retrieving one Shari Lewis' original hand puppets." She shuddered at the memory. "The puppet told the kid to do it." Of course Sarah wasn't including other artifact mishaps, just this one where she'd been physically hurt. She wasn't sure her mothers could handle the other stories yet. "Small children are rabid little creatures."

Both women laughed at the look on their daughter's face. They also both caught the look in Sarah's eyes. They'd lit up with such pride, joy, and fulfillment as she spoke of her work. That brightness hadn't quite been there in the past when Sarah would speak of her MI5 cases. Helena looked up to catch her wife's gaze and inwardly they both sighed. Perhaps it was true after all. Maybe Sarah did belong with the Warehouse.

Since they'd opened this can of worms Sarah decided to take advantage and said, "Besides, it's not like I apparently blew up or anything."

"Oh," Helena said, a bit staggered by the mention of Claudia's little slip. "Yes, that, well…"

"Baby, there is a lot about your mother and me that we will explain." Myka cut in. "But not now, not all at once. Clearly your Mum's just fine and for now all you need to know is she was very brave, and a hero, my hero."

Helena smiled at her wife, her dark eyes alight with the love she still felt for the woman who'd given her a reason to heal, and a second chance at having a happy life. "Oh darling, aren't you flattering to an old woman."

"It's true." Myka replied, returning Helena's deep and unyielding affection.

"You don't' even remember it, nor do I for that matter, it never really happened." Helena said with a playful huff.

"It happened. I might not remember it in my head but I do in my heart." Myka argued. "That feeling never went away."

Helena took her wife's hand. "I know it didn't my love."

"Still here." Sarah said, stopping her mothers lovey dovey cooing before it got out of hand, as it so often did.

Helena smirked while winking at Myka. "We know darling."

Sarah groaned. Her mother enjoyed embarrassing her just a little too much sometimes. "I have more questions."

"Ask us darling." Helena said as she returned her gaze to Sarah. "Mom and I aren't going anywhere any time soon, so we'll have plenty of time to get to everything."

Back at the B&B the Lattimer men were finishing off the last of the cookies and milk, which meant Leena had gone off to the store to restock her kitchen. For a long time the two just sat side by side on the sofa stuffing their mouths with oatmeal scotches, chocolate chips, and snickerdoodles while pounding back glasses of milk.

When Michael couldn't possibly eat another cookie he asked, "So what's your part in all of this? Are you an agent like Mrs. Wells or a Regent like Mrs. Bering?"

Pete was quite for a moment. He set the cookie he'd been eating back on the plate and tugged on his shirtsleeve to cover the shackle on his wrist. "I use to be an agent, back in the day, with Myka. After your Mom and I remarried I was a consulting agent for awhile, helping out whenever they needed me, still do sometimes."

"And now?" Michael asked, watching his dad closely.

"I'm kind of the in case of emergency guy." Pete answered.

Michael's eyes darted to the thing around his dad's wrist that he'd always kind of wondered about since it used to be around his grandmother's when he was growing up. It took a moment but then he connected the dots. "That's the Remati Shackle isn't it?"

Pete's eyes went wide. "You know about the Remati Shackle?"

"I read the manual." Michael said with a shrug.

"It's in the manual now?" Pete asked, looking even more surprised. "You read the manual?"

"Didn't you?" Michael asked.

"Um, yeah, sure, of course I did." Pete lied.

Michael laughed. "You so did not read the manual."

"I read parts of it." Pete admitted with a laugh. "But never the whole things, not like Myka, or Claudia, or H.G., or Leena, or…"

"Every other agent?" Michael teased. He couldn't help but smile. At least his dad was still his dad. Though he wasn't sure why he would have thought otherwise. His dad was just the kind of man who was what he seemed to be. He was the kind of man Michael wanted to be. It actually meant a lot to him to know that he was good enough in what he did to follow in his dad's footsteps this way. Unlike Pete, who'd been shaken and hurt when he'd found out about Jane, Michael was nothing but proud and eager to prove he could handle this. "Grandma use to wear that thing."

Pete nodded. "She was a Regent, and she wore it for a long time. When she decided to retire it was transferred to me."

Ok, so his dad, his grandma, who else was in on this? "Does Mom know about this?" Michael asked. "About the Warehouse and what you did? What you still do?"

Pete nodded. "Of course she knows. She was kind of whammied a couple of times."

"You whammied Mom?" Michael asked with an amused look on his face. He could just see how upset Amanda Lattimer would be at being whammied, and how his dad would really have to suck up to make things better. Artifacts were highly unpredictable and that just had to rub his Marine mom the wrong way in so many ways.

"I didn't personally whammy her." Pete defended himself. "She just kind of got whammied because of me."

Michael just shook his head as he laughed, but he also took comfort in knowing he could talk to him mom about this too. "What about Matt and Artie?"

"Clueless." Pete answered. "Like I said bud, I never wanted you three in on this. I'm really proud of you Mikes, but I'm kinda wishing things had happened differently here."

"If wishes were pie…"

"You'd be very rolly polly because you're a bottomless pit." Sarah said as she walked into the living room.

"I am not." Michael argued.

"Are there any cookies left other then the few survivors on that plate?" The girl asked as she dropped onto the sofa beside her partner.

Michael and Pete looked at each other before looking at the three women staring at them. They pointed at each other and said in unison, "He ate them!"

"Well I do hope you aren't to stuffed with cookies because there's a curiosity out there waiting for us and I'm not mollycoddling you if you've given yourself a stomach ache." Sarah said as she snatched up the last remaining whole cookie on the plate. Pushing to her feet she headed for the door while nibbling. "Come along Lattimer."

Helena blinked. "Darling, did you just say a curiosity?"

Sarah stopped, she turned to look at her mother and bit her lip. "I know it's called a ping, but Claudia said that word once, and I really liked the sound of it, and now for some reason whenever I say it her face kind of lights up."

Apparently so did Helena's. Walking over she took Sarah's face in her hands and kissed her forehead. "So much like your mothers it's frightening."

"We shouldn't be gone long." Sarah said softly as she smiled up at her Mum. "Easy museum B&E. Snag, bag, and replace. We'll be back by breakfast."

"Be careful my precious girl." Helena said with a soft smile.

Sarah smiled back. "I will, Mum, I promise."

"I got her back, Mrs. Wells." Michael promised.

Pete beamed. "Lattimer and Bering back out in the world chasing down artifacts."

"Bering Wells." Sarah corrected before she and Michael headed for the door.

Once Sarah and Michael were gone the three older agents looked at each other. "So," Myka said as she and Helena sat on either side of Pete. "What do we do about this most resent turn of events?"

"Take them home?" Pete asked.

Helena shook her head. "They wouldn't go. I have never seen Sarah light up the way she does when she speaks of the Warehouse." She sighed a soft almost defeated sounding sigh. "I'm afraid it's to late. They've been sucked in."

"At least we know Artie and Claudia are looking out for them." Pete said. "I mean Claudia did send them after an artifact she knew H.G. would have an interest in, and Artie just helped them escape."

"Escape?" Myka asked, giving her former partner an odd look.

Pete nodded, and chuckled softly. "Retrieving an artifact from a museum? It's one of those things he sits on until he needs it, busy work, or in this case helping the kids get a breather from their freaking the hell out parents."

"I did not freak out." Helena said in a huff. "I'm rather proud of the way I held back. As unladylike as it may be, I really wanted to slap Mrs. Fredrick, but I kept that urge under control."

"You showed very good restraint honey." Myka said half teasingly and half meaning it.

Pete snorted. "I'd have paid to see that."

"Don't encourage her!" Myka scolded. "We were thrown out of the PTA because of her."

Helena's eyes flashed with the memory. "That cow really shouldn't have pulled on Christopher's hair. Her son started the whole row, mine was simply going to finish it."

"That was our first warning." Myka explained as Pete's eyes darted between them comically. "We only got two."

"That beast's son forcibly kissed my daughter!" Helena defended herself.

"That was the last." Myka said to Pete before once again reminding her wife, "They were five, Helena."

Helena huffed. "Sarah was in tears."

"Helena's just a little over protective." Myka explained.

Pete slumped down and pouted.

The two women looked at him oddly. "What's wrong, Pete?" Myka asked with a frown.

"We missed out on everything." Pete said sadly. "I would have been an awesome Uncle Petey, but I didn't get to be."

Myka sighed softly as she gave a sad little nod before a small smile broke out on her lips. "You named your son Michael."

"Christopher's middle name is Pete." Helena said with a smile.

"Aww, really?" Pete said in his dopy sweet Pete voice. "See, I should have been Uncle Petey. We should have done things differently."

For the rest of the evening the three got caught up on their lives. They talked about their families and apologized for missing out on so much. It hadn't been their choice to completely loose contact. The Regents and Mrs. Fredrick thought it would be best for the Warehouse, easier to keep some secrets while allowing others to be revealed. There was a list of reasons, arguments made on both sides. Amanda knew about the Warehouse, about artifacts, and Pete's role in all of that. She did not however know about the bronzing or that Helena had not in fact been born in 1977 but rather in 1866. When Myka became a Regent that came with a whole new set of rules about who knew what about her and her life. In the end the Regents and Mrs. Fredrick got their way and the team was separated.

When Claudia got home she joined in on the catching up, so did Steve, and Leena. When Sarah and Michael came home they were more than a little surprised to find everyone still up, even Artie who'd joined in on the reminiscing.

"Hello darlings." Helena called from where she sat beside Myka, cuddled on the sofa in the living room. Myka was cuddled into her side and Helena had her arms around her. They had a throw draped over them, cups of half drunk tea beside them. They looked and felt at home despite the years of being away.

"Have you been up all night?" Michael asked.

Pete nodded. "Slumber party! Come on, join in."

Sarah shook her head. She looked at Artie and said, "Artifact is on your desk, replacement is in place, and I'm going to bed, goodnight."

Shortly after Sarah and Michel headed up the reunion in the living room broke up and everyone headed to bed for a few hours of sleep. Before going to the room Leena had made up for them Helena and Myka stopped to check on Sarah. Their girl was already sound asleep, curled under her blankets, Ned the plush lamb tucked under her chin. They both felt so torn over all of this. The Warehouse had been such a wonderful part of their lives, despite all the bad things that happened, so why weren't they more thrilled about Sarah having her own years full of wonder and excitement? They would simply have to relay more of their trust in Sarah than their fears of what could happen. Trusting Sarah would be easy, it was trusting everyone else they would struggle with.


	9. Chapter 8

He knocked on her door, waited a moment, and then opened it enough to poke his head into her room. Though it was very clear from her shallow slow breathing, closed eyes, and the full nelson death hold she had on her old stuff lamb, that Sarah was asleep Michael still whispered into the darkened room, "Sarah." He paused a moment. "Sarah, are you awake?" There was a bit of movement under the covers and a soft murmur that Michael seemed to translate into yes please do come in. He'd managed to get a few hours of sleep but the moment his eyes opened everything from the day before came rushing back at him. He had never really questioned his parents in the past, but now he simply couldn't shake the feeling of wondering what other secrets he was going to run into now that this whole can of worms had been opened.

Walking over to the bed Michael gave the woman in it a careful nudge. "Sarah?"

Sarah moaned. She really didn't want to wake up yet. "What time is it?"

"A little before nine." Michael answered.

She groaned as she shifted a little under the covers. They'd only managed a few hours of sleep. She hated running on only a few hours of sleep. "This better be important."

"Everyone's still asleep or in their rooms." Michael told her. "I thought…" An arm appeared from under the warm blankets. Michael watched as Sarah began to blindly search her nightstand. "What are you looking for?"

"My gun." Came the sleepy reply.

Michael took a step back from the bed. "Why are you looking for your gun?"

"To shoot you with." Sarah grumbled. "It'll make me feel better."

That actually made Michael smile. Whenever he needed to think before moving to South Dakota he would often head down to a firing range. It somehow helped him focus, probably because it let him blow off some steam. "That's a good idea."

One hazel eye cracked open to look at him as if he'd gone mad. "Shooting you is a good idea?"

"No, shooting me is not a good idea." Michael said with a roll of his bright blue eyes. "Get your gun and meet me outside."

After forcing herself out of bed Sarah threw on a pair of track pants and t-shirt, put her hair up in a messy ponytail, and repeatedly reminded herself that Artie would be very angry if she forced him to find her a new partner because she'd shot the one she had for waking her up. Luckily for her, maybe not so lucky for Michael, she'd grown up with an older brother and was an expert on getting back at stupid headed boys. When she arrived outside the B&B she found Michael waiting for her in the car. She gave a little shrug and climbed into the passenger seat. Ten minutes later she found herself at the make shift firing range they used for target practice. She groaned yet again as she slammed the car door behind her. "Really? You want to do this now?"

Michael shook his head. "This isn't about practicing. This is about blowing off steam."

They really hadn't been able to talk about everything that happened after stumbling upon her mother in Oklahoma. They had both been swept up in the waves of confrontation and had been lost in their own thoughts on the mission last night. Taking her gun from its holster Sarah gave a little shrug. "I'm out of bed I might as well do something productive."

Sarah was trained in the use of firearms but she didn't have the experience Michael had, so she didn't really mind the extra practice. In the months since coming to the Warehouse she'd actually gotten a lot better. The two of them stood side by side firing off round after round until Michael finally set his gun down and took the orange plugs from his ears. Sarah followed his lead and once he knew she could hear him he said, "I've never felt like this before. Like I'm so small in comparison to the larger whole, but at the same time like I'm this big piece of something special."

Sarah nodded in complete understanding. "Part of me wants to know everything, and I get the feeling there is a lot of everything to know, but another part kind of me doesn't want to know what else there is out there, because I'm not sure I could live up to that, up to them."

"We can try to be like them but we can't ever be them, Sarah." Michael said softly. "I learned that already. I tried to be just like him but that just made things harder."

"You can't walk away from your own truth." Sarah said as she leaned against the makeshift table that held their weapons while they talked. Michael gave her a look that made her chuckle softly. "It's something my mothers taught us. I keep thinking about that and endless wonder. Mrs. Fredrick said that when she came for me, it's why I stopped and listened. My mothers use to say that when I grew up I would find my happy place and from there I would look out on a sea of endless wonder." She laughed softly. "They didn't have a clue it would be the same endless wonder they saw."

"They didn't see the endless wonder coming for their kids like Peter Pan in the night, stealing them away to Neverland." Michael added, clearly unhappy over the way their parents had been treated.

Sarah looked at him a little oddly. "What dark version of Peter Pan did you read? And can I borrow it?"

Michael laughed, and then turned serious again. "At least you'll be able to talk to your moms now. I know that was really bugging you."

"A small flaw in my stoic armor." Sarah said only half jokingly. "I'm a bit of a mummy's girl."

"Na, that's not a flaw." Michael said as he shoulder bumped her. "There's nothing wrong with having a good relationship with your parents. Being an adult can freaking suck! It's kind of nice to have them around to give you a little break from it." Sarah gave him a, quit patronizing me, look that made him laugh again. "I'm serious, swear to god, first time I was hurt in the line of duty, I asked for my mommy." Sarah looked doubtful. "Don't think the doctor and nurses was expecting a Marine to walk in, it was quite the sight let me tell ya."

She gave him a soft smile before sighing and reaching up to rub her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Why do I have this feeling like this is just the start of things?"

"I get that feeling to." Michael replied. "I'm pretty sure yesterday was just hitting the tip of the iceberg, the rest of the ice is still under the surface."

"You need to stay out of the Titanic aisle." She teased him as she stood, turned back around, and picked her gun back up. "I'm pretty sure we don't have the 1997 version of Kate Winslet in the Warehouse."

Michael smirked that boyish smile of his. "We could, who knows what or who we have in the Warehouse."

"Mikes." Sarah groaned with a roll of her eyes. "I'm pretty sure we don't keep people in the Warehouse."

When the two made it back to the B&B brunch was ready and waiting for them, and the rest of the house was up and already at the table. For Michael it was the smell of food that drew him towards the sunroom, but for Sarah, though she was starving, she was more interesting in the loud boisterous laughter. Her only hope was that the laughter had nothing to do with telling embarrassing stories about her but knowing her mothers the way she did that was exactly why everyone was laughing.

"Good morning darlings." Helena said as Sarah and Michael joined them.

"Where did you two get off to already this morning?" Myka asked before popping some melon into her mouth.

"Shooting range." Sarah answered. "What were you all laughing at?" She asked a little uneasily.

Helena smiled sweetly. "We were just asking if the two of you have been behaving yourselves since arriving at the Warehouse."

There was a momentary flash of panic in Sarah's eyes. "Oh?"

Claudia smirked in an almost devilish way as she said, "Lets see, where to start. We spent three days in an episode of Star Trek the original series."

For some reason all eyes flickered to Michael who was pouring himself some coffee. "What? No, hey, no it wasn't me! Why are you all looking at me?" He looked at their expressions and then looked at his dad. "You touched stuff a lot didn't you?"

"Maybe." Pete said, looking more than a little guilty. "Ya know, once, twice…"

"Half a dozen times a week." Myka threw in.

Michael just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I did not send us into Star Trek."

Myka's eyes went wide as she followed Michael's line of sight to her daughter. "Sarah! You played with an artifact?"

Sarah for her part looked really sheepish. "Oh come on! Leonard Nimoy's original Spock ears! How could I not kind of try them on?"

"Aww man!" Pete whined. "I always wanted to touch those but Myka wouldn't let me."

"And now you see why." Myka said firmly before turning her gaze back to her daughter.

Sarah slowly sank into her chair as she tried to avoid her Mom's gaze and then after several moments she blurted out, "Michael made us relive WWII!"

Pete laughed. "You played with the little green army men didn't you?"

"Yes." Michael admitted with a bit of a smirk.

"Stop looking so pleased." Sarah huffed at him.

Michael laughed. "It's not my fault you were stuck as a nurse with grabby handed pilots"

"Everyone has a bumpy start." Pete said, looking amused.

"Oh it gets better." Claudia said with a laugh. "Or worse if you're Jinksy."

"Why?" Helena asked. "What happened to Steve?" She watched as Sarah just about slid out of her seat. "Sarah?"

"She lost him." Claudia answered.

"Lost him?" Myka asked.

"In the Warehouse." Claudia filled in. "He was showing her how to do inventory, she picked something up, and then walked away to look for something else on her."

"What did she pick up?" Myka asked with a look amusement and motherly shake of her head.

"Drift wood from the Bermuda Triangle." Artie grumbled.

Sarah glared at the other woman. "You can stop now."

"Oh poor Steve." Helena said with a soft chuckle.

"Oh that's no big deal." Pete said, smiling at the girl and giving her a reassuring wink. "Your Mom and I bronzed him."

Sarah looked over at Pete with a confused look on her face. "Bronzed him?"

Pete nodded. "He was killing our vibe so we bronzed him. We were both under the influence of an artifact of course, cause we would have never woken up naked in Artie's bed together if we hadn't…"

"Pardon me?" Helena said, her eyes wide. "Naked in bed together?"

"It was so not like that." Myka reassured her wife. "We were intoxicated, kind of, it was artifacty. It's a really long story."

Helena raised a dictate eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. "We have all afternoon."

"See it all started with W.C. Fields' balls." Pete said and then suddenly yelped. "Myka! Did you just kick me?"

Turn about was fair play. Michael and Sarah sat and listened to the stories about when their parents worked at the Warehouse. Michael was finding it really amusing that most of the stories started with, "Pete touched…" and Sarah was finding it comforting knowing that her mothers weren't completely perfect agents. Sarah smiled as she listened to her mothers talk about the first case they worked together. Of course all stories about Helena were carefully edited for content, so as not to expose Helena's secrets. Michael couldn't stop laughing at the story about his Mom and the queen bee artifact. Christmas around the Warehouse was starting to sound like an adventure all on its own. It was sometime after the Pete turning them into two-dimensional steam-punk diorama puppets and Pete causing them to get sucked into a horror comic that Sarah suddenly sat up with a questioning looked directed at Claudia.

"Wait, wait, wait." Sarah said stopping the story. "You worked with them? Back than? What twenty-five, thirty years ago? How is that even possible? What are you like twenty-six, twenty-seven?"

"Aww, you think I'm young! That's so cute." Claudia said before explaining how old she was and why she looked as if she were much younger. "I have a very special connection to the Warehouse. It was freaky at first, scary as hell, but when I finally accepted that my fate lay with becoming the next Caretaker my aging slowed down. It hasn't stopped, but its slowed why down."

The younge agents took that in and shared a look that spoke of just how much they did not know and wondering if they ever would know everything, or if they even wanted to. It was Michael who finally asked, "So how old is Mrs. F exactly?"

"No one really knows." Claudia answered. "And no one is brave enough to ask."

One day off was one day to many as far as Artie was concerned, so the next day Sarah and Michael found themselves back in the Warehouse working inventory while waiting on their next ping. They'd gotten a lot of information from everyone and needed to process it all, but they both still knew that there was so much more for them to discover. Sarah, much like her mother, had a thing for details. She had not forgotten her question about bronzing nor had she missed the way stories about her Mum seemed sutdly edited as if to keep them, her, in the dark. Though she hadn't pushed the day before she would figure things out, she had patience enough to wait.


	10. Chapter 9

They'd just gotten back from a snag, bag, and tag in Turkey and the only thing on their minds were hot showers and their beds. They had of course brought the artifact back to the Warehouse first, as per Artie's rule. Hearing the queen bee story had explained why Artie had that rule about always stopping at the Warehouse first, and never ever taking an artifact back to the B&B, so neither of them complained. Sarah had managed to get in and out of the Warehouse without incident, meaning she got first dibs on the hot water back at the B&B. Michael on the other hand had gotten roped into taking a few things down to the stacks and putting them in their proper places. That's where Pete found him.

"Come on, Mikes." Pete said after his son placed the last artifact on a shelf. "I have something I want to show you."

"Dad." Michael said tiredly. "Can't this wait?"

"You'll love this I promise." Pete said with a dopy grin. He led Michael through the never ending labyrinth that was the Warehouse to a little back corner no one seemed to take much notice in. His grin grew into an all out smile as he pulled what looked like a push button car control out of his pocket and pressed the button. "Welcome my son to the…" He turned after the door to the hidden room opened and his smile dropped into an instant pout. "What happened to the Pete Cave!?"

Instead of the old recliners, drum set, and other Pete preferred items the space had a leather sofa, a foosball table, an updated flat screen tv, video games system, sound system, a bookshelf with books, and other more Michael and Sarah type items. The only things that were the same were the dartboard and H.G. and Claudia upgraded bar. Pete looked a little impressed under his boyish pout, and it made Michael laughed. "The Pete Cave? Is that what this was? Sarah and I found this place weeks ago, Dad. We did a little redecorating."

Pete jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the framed picture on the wall beside the bookshelf. "Why is there a picture of King William V on the wall of the Pete Cave?"

"Have you met my partner, Dad?" Michael said with a laugh. Walking further into the room and behind the bar Michael grabbed to glasses and set them on a grate built into the long wooden bar and than tapped at a touch screen. Two tap spouts came up from within the bar and curved over the glasses, one dispensed cream soda and the second orange soda, before disappearing again. "And since she is undoubtedly using all the hot water at the B&B how about a drink? I think there's an Indians game on. Claudia hooked us up with an amazing satellite feed."

As he took his sofa from the bar Pete smiled and shook his head. "Claudia. Did she kind of guild you into finding this place?" When Michael nodded he nodded as well. "I bet she was hoping you'd find this." He reached over to what looked like just a carving in the dark wood and pressed something that released a panel on the wall behind Michael. Pinned inside were pictures, candid shots of Pete, Myka, Helena, Steve, Claudia, Artie, Trailer and even Mrs. Fredrick in one and Jane in a few too. They were smiling, laughing, and so very clearly a family.

Michael looked the pictures over and smiled. "You were all so close."

"They were my family." Pete said softly.

Michael turned just in time to see the hurt in his dad's eyes. He'd missed them, all of them, and now that he was once again face to face with these people he cared so much about it was harder to keep the pain of loosing them buried away. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, son." Pete reassured him. "If anything I should be the one who's sorry. I should have fought harder to keep us all together. The Regents, despite what they think, aren't always right and they weren't right about this."

"Maybe things had to happen that way so Sarah and I would be who we are now." Michael said with a shrug. "You have them back now, and that's what matters, right? You can't change the past, Dad."

Pete gave his son a smile. "Yeah, I know. I tried once."

"You tried once?" Michael asked, his eyes wide with curiosity.

"Yeah, with the time machine." Pete replied.

Michael's eyes bugged out a little. "We have a time machine in the Warehouse?"

"Yeap." Pete said with a smirk. "Well kind of, it's not like a Tardis or anything, physical time travel is impossible after all. This machine sends a person's conscious back through time."

Michael looked impressed as his Dad told him all about the time machine and how it worked while they moved over to settle on the couch. "Wow, whoever came up with that must have been a bona fide genius."

Pete snorted. "She likes to think so."

"She?" Michael asked.

"Oh," Pete said before he could dig the hole he suddenly found himself in any deeper. "The game's starting, turn it up. Ya know I think the Tribe has a real chance this season."

Michael rolled his eyes. "You say that every season."

With both of their children now living in the States, Christopher in California and Sarah now in South Dakota, Helena and Myka began making agreements to move back as well. They weren't going to be moving back into the B&B or anything, but they did want to be closer than London. Because of Myka's status as a Regent it wasn't as simple as picking up and moving, so it was a bit of a long process. While Myka dealt with their moving issues Helena made herself available to Artie and the Warehouse. She was rather enjoying being more active again and had even gotten the chance to work with her daughter.

Since it was a pingless day everyone was working inventory. Sarah actually liked inventory because it gave her an excuse to explore. There truly was wonder around every corner, and a new and marvelous item or sector to discover. Sometimes though, she would come across things that weren't so marvelous. The moment she stepped into the unknown area Sarah felt that something about it wasn't right. Slowly making her way further inside she took in what she saw, rows of metal statues, but she had a hard time processing it. She looked at the machine in the room for a long moment before walking over to look more closely at one of the figures. Bronze? Her mind flicked back to the day they all sat around telling stories; back to Pete saying he and her Mom had bronzed Steve. Sarah gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. Were these people? Real people?

"You're not suppose to be in there, darling." Helena's voice said softly from just outside the doorway.

Sarah turned to look at her mother. "What is this place?"

"Come out here, Sarah." Helena said firmly. For obvious reasons Sarah was unaware of Helena absolutely refused to set foot in the Bronze Sector. "Now please."

It was her mother's tone that made Sarah walk over to her and out of the Bronze Sector. Without a word Helena began walking away from the area and Sarah followed. "Mum." She said as she looked over her shoulder. "Mum, what is that place? What are those statues? Mum! Are those people?"

Helena sighed as she stopped and turned to look at her daughter. "Yes, darling, those are people." The look of horror on Sarah's face was just more reason to keep her own past a secret for as long as possible. "People who for whatever reason needed to be removed from society, just as the artifacts."

"So they're what?" Sarah demanded. "Executed and kept in there as trophies?"

"They're not executed, Sarah." Helena said with a shake of her head. Then she sighed softly as she explained, "They're imprisoned."

"You mean they're alive?" Sarah exclaimed, her eyes wide and darker from her emotions.

"They're preserved in a state of limbo." Helena explained. She did her best to explain it all, the process and the reasoning behind it, and maybe if she'd been talking to anyone else, anyone but her own child, she could have pulled off an air of teaching, but Sarah knew her.

"You don't like that place." Sarah pointed out. "You wouldn't even step inside."

"I would rather spend the night alone in the Dark Vault." Helena said honestly.

"How is this ok?" Sarah asked. "How is a room full of the dead living ethically ok?"

"It is one of those matters where we must simply accept this as one of the Warehouse's truths despite how one might feel personally." Helena replied.

Normally Sarah wouldn't argue with her mother when Helena was giving her the look she was currently getting. That looked meant pushing her mother even the slightest would end badly for Sarah, so she didn't so much argue as say, "That's complete rubbish and you know it." Before walking away. She quickly made her way back through the Warehouse and up to the office. Artie was about to bark her about having finished her work when she gave him one hell of a glare and simply said, "No."

Artie, Claudia and Steve all watched as Sarah gathered her things and storm through the umbilicus door. When Helena came into the office minutes later and they asked what happened she told them, "She found the Bronze Sector."

"Did you tell her…" Claudia began but Helena cut her off.

Her dark hair swayed against her back as Helena shook her head. "I told her only what its purpose was, and its fundamental workings. I did not tell her that it had once been my prison as well. I would appreciate it if none of you told her either."

"She's young." Artie grumbled from his chair. "She hasn't learned to see in shades of gray yet. Myka hated the idea of the Bronze Sector too when she found out." He stood up, steadied himself on his cane, and then walked over to Helena, giving her a brief but reassuring look. Then he walked out the door and down the long white passageway to the outer door. Sarah was sitting on the bumper of the classic Aston Martin her brother had given her as a welcome to the states present. Artie smiled since no one was looking at him. He liked having someone around who enjoyed his love of old cars. Walking over to the young woman he said, "Let me tell you a story."

"Artie." Sarah began to protest but that just got the end of Artie's cane pointed at her nose, making her go a little cross eyed.

"Shut up and listen." Artie barked gruffly, tittering a little on his feet before he set his cane firmly back on the ground. "Believe it or not the Bronze Sector did something good once. It gave someone a second chance at life." He paused long enough to carefully lower himself onto the bumper beside the girl. "There was an agent with one of the old Warehouses who suffered a terrible trauma that caused reckless behavior that would led to the death of fellow agent. If this agent had been in the right state of mind the senseless death would have never happened, there was a lot of guilt piled onto the huge amount of grief already festering inside. Not wanting to hurt anyone else the agent asked to be bronzed. A century later another agent, twisted by the things that can go wrong here, debronzed the first agent. At first things were pretty rough, the old grief and guilt were suddenly joined by fear of the unknown and a sense of being lost in a world that didn't seem to be any better than the old one. In time, with the help of people who cared, the agent was able to have a second chance at life and to find happiness. Because of that single reason, I'm glad we have the Bronze Sector, and so are a lot of other people."

Sarah listened. Whoever Artie was talking about they meant a lot to him, but still. "One person, one person out of dozens, came out of that horror show alright, that's great, but it still doesn't make leaving those people suspended in frozen awareness any better."

"The people in that sector are the worse of the worse, Sarah." Artie told her. "And before you say anything, mistakes are made in every form of a justice system ever devised. Lives were saved because the people in there were bronzed, including the life of that agent and everyone touched by that life."

"If you say so, Artie." Sarah said. Nothing was perfect, and she loved her work too much to let this drive her away. She would learn, like her mother before her, to accept this dark part of the Warehouse. It just wasn't going to happen with one story about a random agent she didn't know.

"Come on." Artie said as he struggled to get back to his feet. "You get to help me flush the gooery."

"Is this because I told you no and walked away?" Sarah asked with a sudden pout. She hated working in the gooery.

"Yes." Artie said honestly.

Sarah groaned. "Yeah that never works out for me with my mother either."


	11. Chapter 10

He was trying to focus on writing out his field reports but it wasn't easy with Sarah sitting across from him at the table in Artie's office sighing like a tire with a slow leak. He tried not to let his eyes flicker upwards away from his paper because he knew making eye contact would give her the reason for speaking she was looking for. After being gone for a week, he'd gone back to Cleveland with his Dad to see his Mom; Michael was finding he needed to relearn all the little tricks for dealing with Sarah he'd learned in the time since meeting her. Just when he thought he would crack she stopped and he relaxed, which was his first mistake. He let his guard down. Sarah sighed again and he looked up. Damnit!

"Michael." She said softly so Artie, Claudia and her Mum wouldn't hear her.

"What?" He whispered back.

She gave him a very dashing Wells smile. "Do me a favor, mate."

Michael groaned. "What?"

"Do these for me." She said with a smile and the crinkle to her nose that got her her way a lot. Her smile brightened, her eyes big and doe like as she pushed her packet of field reports towards him. "Please. I'll owe you."

"I'm not doing your field reports for you." He answered with a firm shake of his head.

If Wells charm wouldn't work she'd use her Bering pout. "Please, Mikes. I have concert tickets and if I don't leave soon I won't get to Rapid City in time to have drinks with Alec."

Michael made a face before he could stop himself. Alec was a morning show dj from St. Louis they'd met on a case a month ago who was in Rapid City for a music festival. Michael didn't like him. Thankfully before he was forced to answer her, Claudia announced a ping. Michael relaxed but he saw a flutter of disappointment cloud Sarah's eyes and that made him feel like a heel.

"Oh now here's something good." Claudia said as she tapped away on her keyboard.

Artie looked over her shoulder at the read out before turning to glare at Helena over the top of his glasses. "H.G."

"Oh dear." Helena said as she looked up from what she was tinkering with. "I must be in trouble if you're calling me H.G." She stood and walked over to the pair. "What have I done now?" She asked as she peered at the screen. "Oh!" She said excitedly. "Oh! That's one of mine!"

"I thought we had all your stuff here already?" Claudia said as she craned her neck to look up at the older woman. "Well, all your old stuff anyway."

Helena smiled sweetly. "I was a rather busy little bee in my young Victorian years, darling. I'd forgotten all about that one. I don't even recall finishing it. Nicky did like to distract me from my work with his projects." She beamed at Claudia. "I was a bit like you back then, love, learning from my teachers and then surpassing them quite easily. As I recall, I was helping him with the Tesla design at the time."

"H.G." Claudia said in a mumbled warning kind of way.

But the look on Helena's face said she'd already gone back into her memories of being an apprentice at Warehouse 12. "Oh my dear Nikola he was so excitable, and brilliant, and could be a bit chaotic and harshly demanding, but very focused and rather sweet." She smiled at the memory of her old friend. "He was having an issue with retaining the proper energy levels while the blast was being discharged." She grimaced at the memory, and shook out her hands absentmindedly. "My hands were numb for a week following one of the early stages of testing."

"H.G!" Claudia tried again.

"We couldn't seem to get the later models to regulate the way the prototype did, but my dearest Caturanga had faith we would figure it out. Dear sweet man, always saw something rather special in me." There was a flicker of regret in Helena's eyes. Caturanga had been her teacher, a father figure, and her downward spiral had hurt him. She regretted not having the chance to make amends for disappointing him, for hurting him. She gave a sad little smile as she said, "Caturanga and I were the Artie and Claudia of Warehouse 12."

"Helena!" Claudia finally yelled, practically getting in Helena's face, and snapping the woman out of her thoughts.

"No need to yell darling." Helena scolded.

Claudia groaned. She'd stood up while attempting to shut the English woman up, so it was easy for her to reach out and take Helena by the upper arms and forcibly turned her around.

"Oh bollocks." Helena said as she stood there looking at a rather baffled looking Sarah.

Sarah had come over to have a look at the ping herself. On the screen was a device and note saying that it was thought to be something invented by H.G. Wells. For as long as she could remember she'd playfully teased her mother about her initials being the same as one of her favorite authors. It was one of the reasons she never really paid any attention to everyone at the Warehouse calling her H.G. as easily as they called her Helena. And since the teasing had been done through the blinders of childhood, that inability to see Mum as anyone but Mum, she'd missed the small tells that said talking about H.G. Wells the historical figure made her mother uncomfortable.

Now as she listened to her mother's excited rant, hearing her mother admit that the thing on the screen was hers, and speaking as if she'd known Nicola Tesla and Warehouse 12's Artie personally. Sarah's mind had stalled because she just couldn't take that leap, she couldn't or wouldn't have that thought. It was impossible.

"Sarah?" Helena said gently. "Darling, aren't you suppose to being doing…"

The moment her mother touched her arm it was like a jolt to Sarah's brain and she exclaimed, "What the bloody hell were you just talking about?"

"Sarah Bering-Wells, watch your tone." Helena scolded. It was both a reflex and deflective measure. She wasn't ready to deal with this. She wasn't ready to explain her past. She didn't want to. As much as it had pained her to hide apart of herself, to keep so much of who she was from her children, now that she was actually faced with doing so she was terrified.

"No," Sarah said as she pulled her arm free of her mother's gentle hold. "No, Mum, what was all of that? You were talking like you knew those people, and how could that device be yours? It says it was created in Warehouse 12 in 1896."

"No, that's wrong. I met Nicola in 1893, I was with the Warehouse a full year before I started that project so, it was 1895 actually." Helena said before she could stop herself. When she realized what she was doing she clapped her hands over her mouth.

Sarah just stood there staring at her mother for a long time before finally looking past her to Artie and Claudia who were looking very uncomfortable. "Has she been whammied by something? She's clearly been whammied by something. She thinks she's H.G. Wells. The H.G. Wells!"

"She hasn't been whammied, Sarah." Myka said from the doorway of the umbilicus. Claudia had sent her an SOS text and thankfully she'd already been on her way to the Warehouse. "Your Mum thinks she's the H.G. Wells because she is, the H.G. Wells."

Sarah looked at everyone in the room for an unnervingly long time before saying the only thing she could think of to say, "The fuck?"

"Sarah, really." Helena scolded. "There's no need to be vulgar."

"I'm sorry." Sarah said, her voice full and heavy with snark. "My mothers just told me my Mum is a two hundred year old Victorian man named Herbert who's been dead since 1946! This, Mummy dear, is a what the fuck kind of moment!"

Myka just shook her head but before she could speak Helena blurted out her own reply.

"I always hated that name. I suppose that's what I get for allowing Charles to pick it. And I am not two hundred years old!" Helena protested. "I am one hundred and seventy-one, thank you kindly."

"And doesn't look a day over sixty." Claudia said, trying to interject a little humor. "Now there's an aging treatment for ya. Just get yourself bronzed for a hundred and ten years."

Sarah stumbled backwards, eyes impossibly wide and her jaw dropping. There was an actual pain in her chest from Claudia's accidental slip. "Bronzed?" Her body was reacting to her emotions, her confusion. She looked like she'd just stepped off a painful ride on a roller coaster or realized after jumping from the plane that she had no parachute. Her breathing was short and rapid, her heart pounded as she looked at everyone in the room like they were from a horror movie or something. When her gaze settled on Artie their conversation from a few days ago hit her, and it hit her hard, knocking the air from her lungs as she said, "It was her? The agent who'd been bronzed? It was my Mum?"

"Sarah." Helena said softly.

The young woman shook her head so hard her dark hair whipped back and forth in its ponytail. "No, no, no!" She said, shaken enough to have everyone worried. "You're all crazy, or whammied, or I'm crazy or I've been whammied, because this is insane!"

"We will explain everything, Sarah." Myka said as she closed the distance between herself and her daughter. "But you need to chill first."

"Chill?" Sarah said with a snarky laugh. "Yeah, sure, I'll chill, because freaking out over," Her voice rose to a solid yell. "My mother being the freaking Warehouse version of Doctor Who isn't anything to fucking freak out about!"

Claudia snorted. "H.G. would be a kick ass Doctor Who."

"Claudia!" Everyone snapped at her.

"Sorry." The young Caretaker-to-be said as she sunk into her chair with a brightly burning blush.

When her mothers turned back to her, each of them opening their mouths to say something, Sarah held up her hand. "No, I can't, I need, I just need, I can't…"

"Everyone stop, back off." Michael said, finally speaking up. Walking over to Sarah he said, "Come on," as he took her hand. He gave everyone in the room a glare, daring them to say anything. "Lets go for a walk." Sarah looked up at him, into his blue eyes, and nodded. He gave her a nod in return and then gently led her to the umbilicus door. Once in the long white corridor she let go of his hand and walked ahead of him. It was easy enough for him to keep up and once they were outside, when he saw that she was heading for her car he quickened his pace. "Oh no," He said, catching by the waist and easily stopping her progress by picking her up and turning away from the car. "You drive like the love child of Jackie Stewart and Sebastian Loeb on a good day. There's no way you're driving now." She glared at him but Michael didn't let it affect him. He reached into the front pocket of her jeans and with two fingers plucked out the keys to her car. "Come on, I'll drive."

Him driving wasn't going to burn off the emotions that were causing her to feel as if she'd been set on fire from the inside, and that was kind of why he'd taken her keys. When she was upset she did tend to drive like she was in a rally car race. She gave him a simple nod and he smiled at her. They got into her car and he drove them back to Leena's. Without a word to either Michael or Leena she went upstairs and changed her clothes before making her way down to the gym they had in the basement. She was only slightly surprised to find Michael down there waiting for her.

He smirked at her; he could see her hesitation and that worried him. They spared all the time but if she thought she might hurt him because her emotions over ruled common sense she wouldn't do it. He had no choice. "Come on, princess." He teased, using one of the handful of nicknames he knew would piss her off. "Lets see what you got?"

Helena hadn't known what to do after Sarah stormed out of the Warehouse. Artie declared that the ping could wait and then he and Claudia disappeared so she and Myka could talk. Helena apologized for letting things slip, but Myka told her there was nothing to be sorry for. They had both known that they would have to tell Sarah the truth; it was inventible that she would find out. She tried to reassure her love that Sarah wasn't really angry but in shock. It was a lot to wrap one's head around, and Sarah would just need time.

Tears glittered in Helena's brown eyes as she looked up to meet the beautiful green gaze of her wife's. "What if she hates me, Myka? What if she can't deal with what I did?"

"She adores you, Helena." Myka reassured. Reaching out she held her wife's beautiful face in her hands and used her thumbs to wipe away the tears as they fell. "She knows that above all else you love her. The two of you have had something special since the moment I placed her in your arms."

Reaching up Helena wrapped her fingers around her locket. There had been a very terrifying moment at Sarah's birth. The cord had been around their infant daughter's neck so after her delivery the doctor had given the baby to the nurse so she could be examined. When Sarah was deemed just fine, healthy and perfect, the nurse had given her to Myka first. Helena had looked down into the eyes of their daughter and most of the fear and uncertainty she'd felt following the news that the child would be a girl melted away. Then Myka put their perfect little girl in her arms and Sarah's little newborn hand reached up, those tiny perfect little fingers wrapped around Helena's locket, and those bright baby green eyes looked into Helena's. Any lingering doubt disappeared and from that moment on their bond was strong. Closing her eyes and gently squeezing the locket Helena knew it was strong enough to survive even this.

Myka smiled as she watched the moment pass and then pressed her lips to Helena's before saying, "Lets go talk to her."

When they arrived at the B&B Leena told them that Sarah was in the basement with Michael. They made their way down the stairs just in time to see Sarah use a move Helena had taught her to flip Michael onto his back, sending the poor boy to the mat so hard it knocked the air from his lungs. "Really darling? It isn't fair to use Kempo on the poor boy when he has no way to defend himself."

"I'm fine." Michael wheezed, still flat on his back and trying to force air back into his body. "I'm good. I'm ok." Each word was a painful rasp. "Maybe a little winded."

Both kids were drenched in sweat so it was pretty clear that they hadn't been holding back at all. Michael had willingly gone into this, letting Sarah thrash him so she could burn off the emotional fog that lingered in her heart and head. Myka squatted down beside the young man, helping him to sit up. "You're really very sweet." He gave her a smile that reminded her of Pete, and that made her smile. "Think you can make it up the stairs tough guy?"

Michael nodded. "Just got the wind knocked out of me. I'm fine."

"Good." Myka said before asking, "Give us some privacy?"

Michael looked up and over at Sarah who was standing at the edge of the mat with her arms crossed, her weight leaning against her left leg, and a heated glare focused on her Mum. "Sar?" She looked at him, her lips twitched like she wanted to smile at him but couldn't. She nodded that it was ok, so he nodded his agreement. "One scoop of butter brickle, one scoop of sweet cream with caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles?"

A little more of a twitch, damn near an almost smile tugged at her lips as Sarah nodded. "Don't forget the pretzel pieces."

"Never." He said as he got to his feet.

While Michael was climbing the stairs Helena was shrugging out of her jacket and handing it to Myka. "Perhaps you would feel better if you actually used Kempo on someone who'd give you a challenge?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not doing this with you."

"Afraid I'm to old?" Helena teased; a playful smile on her lips that she hoped would help defuse the tension between them. "I assure you my love I can still give you a proper thumping."

"I don't want to do this because I am so bloody angry right now I might hurt you and mean to do it." Sarah said honestly before walking across the room and up the stairs. As she passed the fridge she grabbed a bottle of chocolate milk and then went out to sit on the swing on the back deck. She wasn't even sure why she was so damn angry and that just made her more frustrated with this whole thing. In the back of her mind she knew her parents hadn't lied to them out of malice, but she and her Mum had always been close and finding out that Helena had kept this from her, it hurt like nothing ever had before. It made her question wither she knew her Mum at all, and that made her question wither their relationship was as real and as solid as she'd thought it was.

When they stepped out onto the deck Sarah was sitting on the swing with her knees drawn up to her chest, her forehead pressed against them, and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She was as tightly curled into a ball as she could get and it broke Helena's heart because she knew this was her daughter's way of trying to armor herself against the world, to keep the bad things from hurting her anymore. Helena faulted in her steps because this time the bad thing was her.

"Just start at the beginning, love." Myka whispered to Helena. She gave her wife a reassuring look and squeeze of her hand before letting it go so Helena could walk across the porch and sit beside their daughter.

Helena gave a slight nod before doing just that. Once she was seated on the swing beside Sarah but on the other side, leaving space between them she began. "I was, as history says, born 21st September, 1866 at Atlas House in Bromley. I was not however, as obviously evident by the presence of breasts and lack of a penis, born a man." That got a soft groan from Sarah and Helena took it as a good sign. At least her girl was listening. "The man pictured as Herbert George Wells was actually my brother Charles. As a woman during that time I couldn't write under my own name and certainly not using my own face. I was, even then, a woman out of time so to speak. I refused to be what my father expected me to be, I fought him at every turn when it came to my studies and suitors, and marriage. My mother, for whom you my precious girl are named, secretly encouraged me to develop my mind, my personally, my life for myself."

"Charles, Christina and I came to the States for a book tour and the World's Fair which was in Chicago that year." Helena continued. She watched Sarah closely, waiting for her to lift her head and show her those beautiful hazel eyes that always looked more brown than green when her emotions were on high. "While exploring the science exhibits I met Nikola Tesla and proceeded to get into a very heated scientific argument with him. This apparently confirmed to certain people I was unaware of that I was in fact the force behind the novels and inventions attributed to my brother. Shortly after that encounter with Nikola I was visited by the Caretaker of Warehouse 12, and soon began working as an apprentice to my teacher, a wonderful man named Caturanga, who believed in me in ways no one else ever had."

Myka reached over from the chair she was sitting in to place her hand on Helena's thigh. She knew how Helena felt about her mentor, and she wanted to offer her love as much comfort as she could, because she knew it hurt Helena to speak of him at times. She also knew the worse was coming and she wanted to show Helena she was there, supporting her all the way.

Helena had to take a deep breath, which shuddered slightly from the emotions of what came next. "In the summer of 1899 I sent Christina to Paris to stay with cousins while I remained in London, close to the Warehouse. She was murdered when my cousin's home was invaded and robbed." There they were, there were her daughter's eyes. Sarah was looking at her now. "I did not handle the loss of your sister well. My grief, my anger, caused me to become reckless, dangerous. I was quite out of my mind I'm afraid. I," She stumbled over her words only because she feared Sarah's reaction not because she regretted this part. She regretted a lot of things she'd done in her past but not this. "I hunted down the men who killed my Christina and I made sure they suffered for what they did. But it wasn't enough, it didn't bring my Christina back to me, so I started looking for ways to go back and change things. I was working in a place where miracles happened." She paused for a moment and then smiled. "I guess I got my miracle after all." She looked over at her wife and her smile grew. "Just in a very unexpected why."

"You asked to be bronzed." Sarah said softly, drawing her mother's attention back to her. "You asked to be left in that place to spend forever in conscious death."

"I did." Helena said with a nod of her head. "In my search for a way to undo the past I caused the death of another agent, a friend. I knew that I couldn't continue unchecked and that I needed to pay for the loss of his life. So I asked, and they said yes, and that should have been the end of that."

"I'm really glad the story doesn't end there." Myka said softly.

"As am I my darling." Helena said as she gave her wife a loving look before turning back to their daughter. "I was debronzed by a man named James MacPherson. I'd spent, as Claudia mentioned earlier, one hundred and ten years with only my grief, my guilt, and my anger to keep me warm, so to speak. I was reborn into this frightening new world rather mad, unfortunately. To me in that moment nothing about the world had changed, in fact, it had appeared worse than the one I'd left behind. If my emotions kept me warm all those years in the cold bronze than my mind kept me busy. I came up with a plan, one I never thought I'd get the change to see through, but there I was lost and alone in a world I had to tether too. My pain was still as sharp as ever and now on top of all that where these new fears, new angers and disappointments."

Sarah had slowly started to unfold herself as she listened to her mother share all of this. Helena was exposing old wounds, she was baring all, and as she did so Sarah let go of the fear and concern that their relationship was built on sand and shadows because here was her mother open and honest, just as she had always been.

"I conned my way back into the Warehouse with the intentions of using them to get what I needed to see my plan through." Helena continued. "What I hadn't counted on, but what I will be eternally grateful for, was your mother. She became the tiny flicker of candlelight in the utter darkness of my world, my very soul." Helena had to stop to swallow back tears as she admitted, "I betrayed her, and when she found me she had every right to stop me forcibly, but she didn't." She turned to look at Myka, her dark eyes once again apologizing. Myka's returned glance told her to get off her damn high horse and stop; she didn't have to keep telling her she was sorry. Myka knew and she'd already forgiven. "I'd grown rather found of her you see." Helena said as she turned back to Sarah. "I'd grown to consider her a friend, and, though I was unaware at the time, I'd made the most elementary of errors. I fell in love. And I am so glad I did because it let your mother stop me from making a mistake that would have been far more devastating than anything I'd done before."

"What did you almost do?" Sarah asked, unsure if she really wanted the answer to this.

Helena looked sheepish as she said, "Oh you know darling, just a little world destruction is all."

"What?" Sarah said with a squeak.

Helena puffed out a breath of air before explaining; "I tried to use the Minoan Trident to create a super volcano that would have ushered in another ice age, there by killing off most if not all of the human population."

"Great," Sarah said as she threw her hands up. "My Mum's the Brain." Looking over at Myka she asked, "Does that make you Pinky?"

"The sass is understood but not appreciated Sarah Jean." Myka scolded.

"What your mother was, Sarah." Helena said as she caught her daughter's eyes and locked their gazes. "Was a hero, my hero. She talked me down; she made me see that not everything in this world was bad because she was in this world. I didn't do it, I couldn't. I couldn't do anything that would take her out of existence. But my actions still managed to hurt her, and for that I will always be so very sorry."

They told Sarah about Myka leaving the Warehouse, and how everyone tried to get her to come back, but it was H.G. in hologram form that finally convinced her. They explained the Janus Coin, and told her about Emily Lake.

"You hate cats." Sarah said, making a face that crinkled her nose in a way that reminded Myka of Helena.

Helena chuckled. "Apparently Dickens was a rather brave cat. He helped Pete out in a fight against an undead cop."

They told her about Walter Sykes, Hong Kong, and Caturanga's chess lock. Though they didn't remember the events themselves, only knowing in their hearts that something had happened, they told Sarah about the bomb, Helena's sacrifice, and Artie's use of Astrolabe. Helena told her how she'd worked solely for the Regents for a while, and that during a case that involved an artifact that made people confess to things, she and Myka had finally admitted how they felt for one another. As Helena told her story, as Myka added to it, as Sarah asked questions the light of day began to fade. Dinner came and went while the three of them talked, none of them taking any notice. Helena hadn't just told her daughter her life story, she'd bared her soul to the girl and now as the stars began to light sky, the moon shaking off its day's rest, she waited. Would her daughter see her as a villain? A moppet escaped from the loony bin? Or would she still be as she always had been? The mother her daughter could always trust and turn to, the mother Sarah loved and adored almost as much as she loved and adore Sarah.

Sarah was quite for a long time. Listening to her mother's story had filled in so many holes that honestly, she hadn't seen until now. She couldn't imagine having the strength that her mother had to survive all of that, or what it must be like to love someone the way her mothers loved each other. She understood now why they were so worried about her working for the Warehouse, why they'd freaked out. She understood her Mum's protectiveness, and all those times when she'd look into Helena's eyes to find an ocean of unexplainable emotion. It was still a lot to take in and she would be processing this for a good long while but turning to look at her mothers, seeing the uncertainty and fear in Helena's eyes, she had no choice but to accept it all for what it was. The voyage of a life and the events that formed the woman she proudly called her mother. "Ok, so H.G. Wells is a woman." She said after a long painful silence. "And she's my Mum."

The tension and anxiety rolled off Helena like a wall falling brick by brick. She visibly relaxed and the moment she knew she was allowed to she pulled Sarah into her arms. "Oh my precious darling girl." She said, her voice thick with tears. "My Sarah."

Sarah let her mother hold her for a long time. They both needed the comfort and reassurance but when the moment had taken its natural course and they pulled away, both of them wiping away tears and trying not to notice Myka doing the same, Sarah flinched. "Oh bollocks."

"What?" Helena asked with a sniffle. "What's wrong love?"

Sarah made a face. "I'm going to have to admit Artie was right."

Both of Sarah's mothers had gone tense but then instantly relaxed and laughed. "Right about what?" Myka asked.

"Living with the Bronze Sector because it gave us Mum." Sarah told them.

Helena smiled, and chuckled, and continued to let her tears freely fall as she said, "I always new Artie loved me."

"With that charm Mrs. Wells who wouldn't love you?" Myka said as she took her wife's free hand. Helena still had her arm around Sarah and Myka had a feeling she wouldn't be letting go any time soon.


	12. Chapter 11

It had been a struggle to cope with everything Sarah had learned about her mothers, about her Mum, but she managed to sort it all out. It helped to have Michael there. When she would wake up crying from the dreams her subconscious played out to help her understanding her mothers' stories, he was always there to put an arm around her. When the facts about her Mum's past, the dark side Helena had had, the anger between her mothers, the betrayals, were to much; when they shook the way she saw her mothers, had always seen them, and she found herself staring into a watered down glass of scotch Michael was the one who would call her out on her crap. He reminded her that everything that happened to Helena and Myka in the past, long before she was born, formed the women they were now. They were still the same women she'd always known. They were still her mothers. He was right, and in time when Sarah had shifted through it all, the only thing that changed was she found herself admiring and respecting her mothers that much more.

Which was a good thing because since Helena and Myka had relocated to New York they'd become an active part of Sarah's life again. It wasn't uncommon for her to return from a snag, bag, and tag to find one if not both of them at the Warehouse or the B&B. Pete wasn't a stranger either, dropping in for visits or helping out on a case. Even if their parents hadn't been to the Warehouse in a while they still managed to see each other since artifacts had a habit of turning up everywhere, like in waterfront warehouses in Cleveland.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sarah asked Michael as they walked down the sidewalk towards the downtown stadium that was home to Michael's beloved Cleveland Indians. "We left an artifact at your parents house!" She gently hissed at him. After getting a ping about a series of car bombings in Cleveland, and a call from Pete saying the suspect had been seen wearing a necklace that when seen in the paper gave Pete a vibe, they were sent to investigate. Apparently some two-bit thug had found a necklace in old waterfront warehouse due for demolition, and the necklace had the ability to set of explosives. Sarah and Michael were about to find out that the necklace had once belonged to Danny Greene an Irish thug, a member of the Celtic Club, an Irish mob organization, who started a bombing war in the streets of Cleveland in the late seventies. Greene, a media diva, was often seen wearing a gold crucifix. "If something sets off Danny Greene's necklace it's going to blow things up."

"We left the necklace in a static bag with my Dad." Michael said reassuringly. "An experienced agent who knows how to handle artifacts. It'll be fine for a couple of hours."

"An experienced agent with a habit of touching things." Sarah huffed at him.

Michael gave her a look. "Spock."

"Shut up." Sarah replied.

He couldn't help but smile. "We haven't had time off in weeks, and I promise you're going to love this! Plus, you owe me. Not only did you make me sit through a cricket match but last month when you had the flu, you made me watch five seasons of Downton Abbey."

Throwing her hands up in defeat because she knew she owed him for the Downton Abbey marathon, Sarah said, "Ok, fine." She smiled at him and then squeaked in surprise when he pulled her towards a shop. She watched him with amusement as he darted around the women's section of the team shop plucking items from shelves and racks.

"We'll need one of these," Michael said aloud as he snatched up a white jersey before looking Sarah over, looking at the size, and deciding an XL might get him physically harmed. He gave her a boyish smile she couldn't refuse and she told him the proper size. Then he asked, "What size is your head?"

"Pardon me?" Sarah replied with a lift of her eyebrow.

"Never mind, they can measure it." He replied before dragging her off towards another section of the shop.

Once they were properly attired, or more precisely now that Sarah was properly attired in a jersey Michael had had personalized, hence the need to arrive way before game time, with her last name "Bering-Wells" and the number "13", and accurately fitted cap, they made their way to the stadium gates.

Sarah looked down at the white jersey with his teams name embossed across the front and teasingly said, "You know my Mom's not going to be happy about this. She's a Rockies supporter."

"First off," Michael replied as they made their way to their seats. "It's fan not supporter. This is baseball not soccer." The glare she gave him was deadly but he refused to say football as firmly as she insisted on saying American football. Though at least she stopped called it a bastardized version of rugby for pansies. "Secondly, don't wear it around your Mom and I'll be fine."

Michael had been teaching her about baseball and as they waited for the game to start she reviewed what she knew. Michael's excitement was infectious and despite her earlier protests, she did find the whole experience quite exciting. As the game progressed, sometime during the seventh inning stretch, Sarah started to sense something was a bit off. At first she thought it was the shoddy beer, hot dogs, peanuts and cracker jacks Michael had insisted they eat, but then she started to wonder if something else was off.

"Figures." Michael said with the sigh of a sports fan long tortured. "They had the game in the bag and chocked."

"There are still two innings yes?" Sarah questioned. "Perhaps they can recover?"

"There's always hope." Michael replied. "But that's how it's always been. Close but no cigar."

"Why?" Sarah asked, unknowingly opening a bitter and heated topic.

"The curse." Michael answered.

Sarah's eyebrow did that questioning thing that made her look like Helena again. "Curse?"

Michael began telling her about Rocky Colvaito and how his trade from the Indians to the Tigers in 1960 was said to have cursed the Indians, keeping them from the World Series. He continued by adding that every bad choice or mistake since than had just added fuel to the curse. "We use to think it was a curse on all Cleveland sports but the Caves broke that back in 2015 and the Browns have won the Super Bowl twice, but the Indians just can't seem to shake it off."

Sarah thought about this for a long moment, shift things around in her mind as if putting puzzle pieces together, and then asked, "Do you really believe it's a curse?"

"What else could it be?" Michael asked. Sarah gave him a look that told him just what she was thinking. "You think it could be an artifact?"

"Do you have the glasses my Mum and Claudia made?" She asked, and then smiled when he pulled what looked like sunglasses from his pocket. She slipped them on, tapped the on switch embedded in the arm and then started looking at everything. When she scanned the field, when her gaze swept over home plate, she gasped at the brightest of its purple fizzle. "Well I think I might have found your issue."

"And how do you suggest we snag and bag home plate?" Michael asked, his voice even lower than it had been.

Sarah smirked. "Please, if I can snag a brooch from the Queen's jewelry box in the royal bedroom I think we can handle this."

Finding the wickedly mojoed home plate at the baseball game wasn't their first random fine, but it happened so rarely that it slipped both of their minds that anything, absolutely anything, could be an artifact. Which in some ways was good because if they focused too much on everything possibly being something harmful, they'd start to fear interacting with the world around them. But in other ways, not suspecting everything to be dangerous could lead to unexpected issues.

They were in a high scale private auction house in Dublin where they were to bid on John Ford's pipe and glasses. The auction was by invite only and while mingling before things got started one of the hosts had directed Sarah's attention to several rare manuscripts, figuring a young woman who's family business was books, and self-proclaimed bookworm with seemingly deep pockets would find them interesting. And she did, she marveled over each piece, some dating back to the 1800s. It struck her as she looked over the old books and manuscripts that these men where her Mum's counterparts and peers, and not a single one of them knew the brilliance behind the "Father of Science Fiction" was actually a woman. "How are these not in a proper museum for everyone to see?" She asked Michael as she picked up a leather bound tome. "It should be a crime to hoard these for the sake of personal gain."

Michael hadn't really been paying attention until Sarah yelped out in pain. "You ok?"

"Something just bit me." Sarah said as she held her right wrist in her left hand. "Bloody thing must have had a spider or something nestled in its pages. It's not uncommon with things that old, especially if stored somewhere like an old attic." When she pulled back her sleeve to look there was a small red welt and she frowned. "I hate insects."

"That looks nasty." Michael said with a flinch of sympathy. "Should you see a doctor or something?"

Sarah shook her head just as everyone was called to their seats. "It's just a bug bite. I always react badly to bug bites. I'll pick something up at the pharmacy at the airport if I need to."

The auction went off without a hitch. They were able to get what they'd come for and jump onto the next flight back to the States. Sarah had stopped and picked up some calamine and antihistamine tablets but it didn't seem to help the redness, swelling and odd burning sensation caused by the bite. She'd had bad reactions to bug bites before, but she couldn't remember them burning the way this one did, just itching like mad. Maybe when they got back she'd ask Vanessa to look at it. Once they were in the air and she could plug into her iPad and zone out she let the annoying sensations drift to the back of her mind. She even managed to get a bit of a nap with her head resting on Michael's shoulder.

"Hey." Michael said softly as the seat belt sign lit up. "We're landing, wake up sleepy head."

Sarah moaned softly. "Oh my head."

He watched as she sat up and brought her hands up to her forehead as if to press out the pressure of her headache. Normally he would tease her about how she always got headaches when she feel asleep on planes, but something didn't feel right. He didn't often get vibes the way his Dad did, but when he did it meant something was way, way off. Sarah was giving him a vibe. "You look kind of pale. Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm native to a small island know for having more overcast days than sunny, I'm always pale." Sarah replied with a soft glare and roll of hazel eyes.

"No, Sarah, I'm serious." Michael said firmly.

"I'm fine." She replied with a dismissive way of her hand.

Michael wasn't buying it. The entire time he was driving them back to the Warehouse his eyes were on her more than the road. She really was pale, and it wasn't the normal kind of fairness she'd meant before. It was the kind of pale that was really starting to worry him. When they got out of the SUV in front of the Warehouse he watched as she leaned against the door, her knees going a bit weak. When she noticed he'd noticed she'd shot him a glare like no other. He followed close behind her as they walked through the umbilicus just in case.

"I'm just tired, Michael." Sarah snapped at him. "Will you please stop mother henning me."

"You could have been bitten by something poisonous." He grumbled.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "There aren't any poisonous spiders in Ireland."

"Not true." Artie said as he caught the tail end of the conversation. "Black widows and other pests have been known to hitch rides on import shipments."

"So not helpful." Sarah said as she handed him the artifact.

From where she sat Claudia frowned as she took in the young agent. "You alright there, junior?"

"Just tired." Sarah replied. With three sets of eyes on her she began to squirm a little. "Ok knock that off. I'm fine, just tired, we went from one case to another without a break in between, I've spent more time on planes over the last three days than I have on the ground. I'm wiped out. I'm going to go home, shower, and sleep."

"I'll take you." Michael said before she could even get past him.

He watched them leave the way they came with a deeper frown on his face than usual. Sarah had seemed off to him, pale, dark circles starting to show under her eyes, and maybe a bit clammy. He'd seen her beyond exhaustion before and that wasn't what it looked like. "She didn't look well."

"No." Claudia agreed. "She didn't."

When the pair got back to the B&B they were surprised by Pete and even more surprised to find that he hadn't come alone. Michael's face lit up when he walked into the living room to find his Mom sitting on the couch having tea with Leena and his dad. "Mom? What are you doing here?"

Amanda smiled as she got to her feet and crossed the room to hug her son. "You're Dad wanted to come see you and I decided to tag along this time."

Sarah hung back and watched Michael with his mom with a soft smile on her face. He'd talked about her a lot and the first time she'd met Amanda Lattimer she'd been a little nervous. Amanda was a highly decorated Marine who managed to maintain her career while raising three sons and a Pete. As the other woman in Michael's life, though it wasn't in a romantic way, it had meant a lot to Sarah to make a good impression on the woman. Luckily the two had hit it off and that had meant a lot to Michael.

When the tall blonde saw Sarah over Michael's shoulder she smiled. "I thought we were past the awkward holding back stage?"

"I just didn't want to intrude." Sarah replied as she returned Amanda's smile. "It's good to see you again Colonel Lattimer."

Amanda chuckled softly. "You know it's ok if you call me Amanda."

"I'm getting there. Sometimes the English is hard to shake off." Sarah said with a teasing laugh. "At least I didn't say ma'am."

"That's true." Amanda replied.

"I saved you both some diner." Leena said as she began clearing away the empty cups and plates on the tea tray.

Sarah gave her a polite smile as she said, "Thank you Leena, but I think I'm going to turn in for the night if everyone will excuse me."

Leena frowned as she took a good long look at the young woman. "Are you feeling alright?"

Before Michael could speak up Sarah replied, "I'm fine." She made her apologies for not sticking around and said her goodnights before making to leave the room. She sensed him more than saw him as Michael made to follow. Turning she said, "Stop. Stay. Seriously I have two mothers I don't need a third. I'm fine. Stay here with your parents and enjoy your visit or I'm going to do you bodily harm."

He didn't like it but he gave in. He watched her head up the stairs and then jumped, startled by his mom's hand on his shoulder. When Amanda asked if everything was all right he admitted, "I have a bad feeling."

Pete stood up, a curious look on his face. "You mean like a vibe? About Sarah?"

"Yeah I guess." Michael answered. "I'm not sure, I don't really do vibes, but something just seems off."

"Whatever it is your feeling son," Pete advised. "Trust it."

Michael thought that over and nodded. He was just about to ask Leena if she'd call over to the Warehouse and ask Vanessa, who was retired but so much closer since she lived with Artie, if she'd come over, when there was a loud thud from upstairs. His eyes, the same color blue as his mother's, went wide. "Sarah!" He ran for the stairs, taking two, three at a time, as he ran up to their floor. He found her out cold in the hallway. "Sarah?" He called out to her as he ran over to her and dropped to his knees beside her. "Sarah!"

"Leena!" Pete called down; he and Amanda had followed their son. "Call for the doctor! Now!"

Like Artie, Vanessa hadn't given in to age either. She might have been formally retired as official Warehouse physician, handing the title over to Constance Nayar her former apprentice, but she was still the doctor Artie and his team went to most often. When she arrived at the B&B with Artie and Claudia in tow Sarah had been moved to her bed and was barely conscious.

"What happened?" Vanessa asked as she moved quickly to Sarah's bedside to start her exam.

"She collapsed." Michael answered. He showed her the mark on Sarah's wrist and told her about how Sarah looked pale on the plane and about the stumble at the SUV. He said that Sarah said it was a spider bite or something, and that she often had bad reactions to them.

Vanessa listened while she looked Sarah over. She looked at the mark on Sarah's arm and then pulled something out of her bag, which she used to check for any kind of biological carcinogens. Finally after what felt like a lifetime to everyone who was waiting she said, "This is a spider bite." She looked up at everyone as she added, "This is an artifact."

Artie wheeled on Michael and demanded. "Tell me what happened. Everything, every detail, starting with did she touch anything?"

"She touched a lot of stuff, we both did." Michael replied. "We got the auction, we mingled, we looked at things to make it seem like we were interested in buying, we had champagne, and she turned on the charm. She got two of the men who were going to bid on the artifact to change their minds. One of the hosts was so taken by her that he showed her a private stash of old books and manuscripts." He paused a moment before saying, "That's when she thought she'd been bitten. She'd been holding one of the old manuscripts."

"What was it?" Artie demanded.

Michael shrugged while looking helpless and even a little guilty. He hadn't been paying attention to her. When she'd started in on museums he'd tuned her out. Sarah looked fragile lying there now, and he hated it. She was too strong to look so weak. "She didn't say and I didn't notice."

Turning to Claudia Artie said, "We need to find out what that manuscript was."

"On it." Claudia said as she heading for the stairs so she could head back to the Warehouse.

"I'm coming with you." Pete announced.

Artie looked over at his wife and asked, "What's happening to her?"

"I'm not sure yet but once I know you will." Vanessa replied.

He nodded and then left to follow the others. When he got downstairs, before walking out the door he paused. He had a debate with himself in that moment. They'd been lucky in the past, getting what they needed to get at the last second, but there had also been times when he hadn't made it in time. "Leena." He said as he put his hand on doorknob. "Call them."

"Of course Artie." The gentle woman said from where she was standing.

Artie nodded and then left.

Michael stayed with Sarah, sitting on the edge of her bed while Vanessa continued to examine her. Physically Sarah was very pale, her skin was cool and calmly, her breathing seemed fine, her heart rate was a little slow, her pupils dilated and if Vanessa didn't know any better she'd say the color of the iris was bit off, but Sarah had those hazel eyes that shifted color depending on what colors she was wearing and her mood. It was as if something were draining the life from the young woman.

Sarah moaned softly as she started to come to. She felt odd, weak, and she couldn't remember what happened or how she ended up in bed. "Ow."

"Sarah?" Michael said with a startled yelp.

"Ow." Sarah repeated. "My head hurts."

"You have a bit of bump." Vanessa said gently. "You must have hit it when you hit the floor."

Sarah blinked her eyes; the light in the room seemed to burn when she tried to open them so she stopped trying to open them. "I hit the floor?"

"You seemed to be on your way to the shower." Vanessa said with a nod. "Sarah, how are you feeling?"

She had to think about that for a moment. "Foggy." She answered. She tried to open her eyes again and moaned, "The light hurts my eyes. My skin feels like it's burning."

Vanessa frowned. "Light sensitive?" Looking up from Sarah to Michael she said, "Turn the lights off and draw the curtains."

Michael nodded and jumped to do as he was told before returning to his spot on the edge of the bed. "Better?"

"Yes." Sarah said as she finally managed to open her eyes.

Once she had more information Vanessa called Artie to fill him in. Claudia listened to Vanessa explain Sarah's symptoms, and how as far as she could tell the artifact seemed to be draining Sarah somehow. Panic and fear were nestled in Claudia's chest as she clacked away on her keyboard. They'd pulled Sarah into this, she was her best friends' little girl and they pulled her into a world were a squeaky dog toy could kill a person. As she went through the auction manifest looking for rare books and manuscripts her hands shook. If something happened to Sarah she would never forgive herself. If something happened to Sarah because of all of them how were they any better than the men who'd taken Christina from H.G.? H.G. Claudia shivered at the thought of how the other woman would react if this ended badly. Finally after what seemed like forever something caught her eye and she neatly tucked her emotions to the side for a second. "I got it!" She shouted. "I got it! It has to be it!"

"What?" Pete asked as he looked over Claudia's shoulder.

"The original manuscript for Bram Stocker's Dracula." Claudia replied. "Sarah's symptoms sound just like vampire bite symptoms and one of the manuscripts up for auction was about Dracula? Fits doesn't it?"

"It's our only lead." Pete said. "Where is it? Dublin? Does she have time for us to fly back to Dublin?"

"Ahh we might just be in luck." Claudia replied as she tapped away at her keys. "According to this the manuscript was bought for an obscene amount of money by an American collector."

"And where is this collector now?" Artie demanded.

"On his way back to Minneapolis." Claudia answered.

Pete grabbed a Tesla, a static bag, and goo-gun. "I'll grab Mike. Get us a plane."

"On it." Claudia answered.

Back at the B&B Michael was alone with Sarah. He was laying beside her, on his back, his hands behind his head. As hard as he tried not to think about it he couldn't stop himself. What if he lost her? In the time they'd been together she'd become his best friend. The thought of loosing her, of not seeing her everyday, of not hearing her voice, or catching a faded hint of her perfume in the house, it put his heart in a vice grip. Sitting up he shifted so he was looking down at her, so pale, so fragile looking. He took her hand in his own and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "You can't die."

"I wasn't planning to." Sarah said, her voice soft, startling him a little because he hadn't know she was awake. It made her smile.

"Good because you can't." Michael told her. "You can't die because I have two really good reasons why you can't."

She gave him a questioning look. "What reasons?"

"One, you're my best friend, Sarah." He told her seriously. "You're the best partner I've ever had and I can't do this job without you. I won't."

Sarah reached over and put her other hand on top of his. "You're my best friend too, Michael. And someday I'll get pissed off my ass and get all mushy and I'll tell you just how much you mean to me, but not today. I'm not going to die. Now what's your second reason?"

He gave her the best smile he could manage. "Your mothers are scary as hell and I'm pretty sure H.G. would kill me if you died." She laughed and that made him smiled a little more. "I'm serious! She'd freaking shoot me and you know it!"

Her eyes, which were a rich reddish-brown, a color they'd never been before, lit up. "She wouldn't shoot you." She replied with a smirk. "She'd be much more creative. They didn't call her the father of sci-fi for nothing."

"Oh that was helpful." Michael said with a playful roll of his eyes.

"I do my best." She said as she let her eyes flutter closed once more, a faint but very real smile on her lips.

From the doorway Amanda had watched. She wondered if anyone else saw what she saw when they watched Michael and Sarah together or if they were all to close to see it. If this sweet girl died a part of her son would as well, and she didn't think even he understood that yet. "Michael." She called to him softly.

Michael jumped. "Mom." How long had she been there? Had she heard the sci-fi crack? Would she even get it? "What?"

"They think they know what the artifact is. Your Dad's on his way to pick you up." He suddenly looked really torn. He wanted to go out and do what he could to save her and yet he wanted to stay, to be at her side. Amanda walked into the room and over to the bed. She sat down and took Sarah's hand in her own. "I'll stay with her. Go, she needs you to go."

Michael nodded. He knew his mom was right. He looked down at Sarah who'd once again lapsed into a kind of sleep state. He brushed at her dark hair and then leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then he got up and left without another word. He grabbed his gear, Tesla, gun, badge, and went to meet his dad out front. He would get this damn artifact, he would neutralize or destroy it, whatever it took to save Sarah's life, and god help anyone who stood in his way.

The next time Sarah opened her eyes it was her mother's face that greeted her. Myka must not have expected Sarah to open her eyes because she saw the pain and fear on her mother's face and they both tried hard to keep Sarah from seeing them that way. "Hi Mom."

Myka's heart jumped. She smiled at her daughter and squeezed her hand gently. "Hi sweetheart."

"I'm ok." Sarah reassured her mother. "I just got whammied."

"Yeah," Myka replied, her voice soft to hide the emotional cracking, "I know, by a book just like your grandfather."

Sarah did her best to smile. "Poe's book and pen."

"Yeah, that's the one." Myka said as she caressed her daughter's cheek.

"Where's Mum?" Sarah asked as she leaned into her mother's warm touch. She was feeling really cold and nothing seemed to help. For a moment the warmth of her mother's touch did, but even that faded.

"Doing what she always does when she's worried and feeling helpless." Myka answered honestly.

Sarah smiled. "Making tea."

"Enough to fill the ocean." Myka chuckled. "She wanted to go along to hunt down the artifact but Michael and Pete were already gone before we got here."

Sarah fell quiet for a few minutes. It was almost like she had to store up the energy to speak. Then she opened her eyes and looked into her mom's. She hadn't been careful; she'd let herself get whammied. It felt like she'd let her parents down. "I'm sorry."

"Don't, baby, don't. You have nothing to be sorry for." Myka said firmly as she looked into her daughter's eyes. She was caressing Sarah's hair and face with one hand while the other held Sarah's hand, which she lifted and pressed her to her heart. "You're Mum and I are so very proud of you, Sarah. You're a pretty amazing young woman, a damn good agent, and a wonder daughter. So don't even go there, ok?"

"Ok." Sarah replied, more for her Mom's sake than for her own.

It had been the call they both feared the most, and the call if they were honest they were both expecting. Every agent at some point comes into contact with an artifact that nearly kills him or her; it was a simple undeniable fact. Myka had been the one to answer the phone and as she listened to what Leena was saying all of her worse fears came crashing over her like a tidal wave. This, this was the very reason she never wanted Sarah near the Warehouse. She had been able to take some comfort in knowing that Pete was with Michael hunting down the artifact that was killing her little girl, but if Sarah hadn't been there in the first place this wouldn't have happened. Pete had never let her down in the past and she knew he wasn't about to start now, so she trusted that part of this whole mess to him while she focused on her daughter. The comfort she took in trusting Pete, helped as Myka had to do the hardest thing she'd ever had to do in her life. Tell Helena their child was in mortal danger. The sound that Helena made when Myka told her was so small, so soft and yet so world shattering, that it made Myka felt as if she were the one dying.

When they arrived at the B&B to find Sarah in the state she was in Myka saw the old pain fueled darkness she'd seen that day in Yellowstone and for the first time since this all began she understood why everyone was so afraid of Helena when it came to Sarah. As she sat with their daughter now, holding her hand, which felt as if it were growing colder, Myka also understood Helena's past a little more. Who's to say what she would be capable of if she lost her daughter? Myka had loved in her life, she loved her parents and her sister, her nieces and nephew; she loved Pete, Claudia, Artie, Steve and Leena, and she loved Helena like no other. But there was just something beyond all of that when it came to loving a child, and for a moment as she watched Sarah resting she wondered if it was Helena everyone needed to fear or would it be her?

"Is she still asleep?" Helena asked softly as she walked into her daughter's room and over to her wife. She stood behind Myka, resting her hands on her wife's shoulders, both giving and taking comfort from her.

"She was awake for a few moments." Myka answered. "She spoke a little but that seemed to tire her out."

Helena felt the trembling of her wife's body and it made her wrap her arms around Myka. "She is going to be fine, Myka."

"You sound so sure about that." Myka replied.

"I am sure about that." Helena said softly. "Life couldn't truly be that cruel."

Michael wasn't playing around. He and his dad located the collector and the book, but no matter what they said or how many times they flashed badges and claimed governmental right of confiscation the man wouldn't agree to give up the tome. So Michael Teslaed him and tore apart his things until he found the book. He wasn't even going to bother with a static bag, he used the goo-gun Helena invented and purple gooed the shit out of it while Pete held the Farnsworths, one with Claudia and Artie at the Warehouse and the other with Myka and Helena at the B&B.

"Any change?" Pete asked. There was a pause and then Vanessa's voice in the background before Myka replied no. Michael's chest hurt. He carefully put the goo-dripping book in the static bag; there was a small spark. "Now?" Pete asked, and again the reply was negative.

"Bring it back, Pete." Artie said. "And hurry, we'll figure this out. I promise."

Michael didn't waste time going back to the Warehouse, he went right to the B&B, and since Artie and Claudia were there he figured they knew he would. They tried every way of neutralizing it they could think of but nothing worked and Sarah was nearly gone. Michael couldn't, wouldn't let this happen. "It's a vampire book right?" He said as he swept some of Sarah's things off a small round table next to her reading chair. Picking up the table he smashed it into the floor, shattering it. He raised the table leg turned make shift steak over his head and then sent it straight through the book. A bolt of energy erupted from the book and Sarah gasped in pain. She sat bolt upright as if startled from a nightmare, her eyes wide, her breathing rapid and her heart rate racing.

This time when they put the wooden spiked book into a can of goo it sparked like the fourth of July.

"Sarah darling?" Helena said as she sat on the bed and reached out to hold Sarah's face in her hands. She watched as Sarah's eyes began to lighten, returning to their beautiful hazel color. "Are you alright?"

It took several seconds for her to gather the internal information to answer and then nodded before turning to look at Michael. "If you ever ask me to watch Dracula Dead and Loving It with you again I will Kempo your bloody ass into next month."

She smiled at him after that and for the first time since finding her on the floor in the hallway Michael's heart beat again. He smiled back at her, fighting the urge to go over and hug her, others had the right over him and he would let them have it. Sure enough within moments Sarah was entangled in her mothers arms, but her eyes were on him for just a little while longer.

As the initial wave of utter relief faded and everyone relaxed Myka smiled, "Well sweetheart you were nearly killed by an artifact. You are now officially a Warehouse agent."

"Wasn't I already?" Sarah asked, a little confused.

Claudia laughed. "Officially but now also honorability."

"We've all been there." Pete said from the doorway where he stood with Amanda and Steve.

"Man Ray's Camera." Myka said.

"Telegraph Island Telegraph." Pete added.

"Godfrid's Spoon." Claudia said taking her turn.

"Pearl of Wisdom." Leena's voice called out next.

"Shakespeare's Lost Portfolio." Steve added in.

"Queen Elizabeth I's phallus." Helena said with a smirk. That stopped the conversation and when she felt all eyes on her she added, "Don't ask."

But of course Pete being Pete said, "You were nearly killed by the virgin queen's favorite dildo?"

Amanda smacked her husband in the chest. "Peter!"

Helena blushed deeply and gave a little shrug. "Yes." And before Pete could open his mouth again she repeated, "I said don't ask."

The room cleared out soon after that to give Sarah her space and because well, who could top nearly being killed by a 16th century sex toy. To his surprise Michael found himself alone with Sarah, and he was grateful. Her mothers must have known he needed a moment with her. He smiled as he walked over and sat on her bed beside her. "You sure you're ok?"

Her reply was to throw her arms around his neck and hug him as tightly as she could. She was still weak, it would take time for her to recover, but the hold said more than she could put into words. "Thank you."

Michael hugged her back just as fiercely. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't ever lose her. When they pulled apart he lifted his hands and held her face gently as he looked into her eyes. "Don't ever do that again."

"I won't." She promised. "Nearly dying is really very unpleasant."

She smiled at him and he smiled back. Then he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm glad you're alright."

Myka and Helena returned mere moments following Michael letting her go and standing up. Sarah almost told them to get out because she hadn't had a chance to reply to him, but he was already on his way out the door. Artie had taken the destroyed manuscript to the Warehouse but Michael had paperwork waiting on him so he left to get that out of the way because he needed to wind down. When he got back hours later and peeked in on her he found her sound asleep in Helena's arms and it made him smile. She was safe, and at the end of the day that's all that mattered to him. She was all that matter to him.


	13. Chapter 12

They sat side by side at the top of the stairs listening to the murmured conversation coming from the living room. It had only been a couple of days since Sarah's run in with Stoker's manuscript, so she was still in a state of limbo. Artie, Vanessa and Mrs. Fredrick wanted to make sure there weren't any lasting effects so she was on medical leave until further notice. It was driving her insane. It wasn't like she'd actually had an illness, she'd been whammied, and since the artifact had been handled she was fine, or so she kept insisting. To make things just that much more frustrating her parents where still around, which she felt was one of the reasons everyone was treating her with kid gloves. "They're hovering."

"They're playing bridge." Michael replied with a smirk. Truth be told they were all kind of hovering, but he knew deep down Sarah didn't mind too much. Yeah she was starting to get antsy, but he knew she hadn't gotten to the point where she'd go off on someone. This had been their first real brush with death on the job and they were both shaken by it, so there really wasn't a rush to push the parents out the door yet.

"It doesn't take both your Dad and my Mum to fill in for me." Sarah huffed.

Michael smirked as he reached over and poked her where he knew she was ticklish. "You're not fooling me, Sar. You're not back to one hundred percent yet and you're enjoying having your mothers around."

"I feel fine." Sarah argued.

"No you don't." Michael said with a shake of his head. "If you felt better you wouldn't be wearing your cuddly clothes."

She sat up so she could turn her head and look at him. Until that moment she had been leaning against him with her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, my what clothes?"

Michael laughed softly as his pretty blue eyes raked over what she had on. Even when she was in lounge clothes she had a bit of style and class, but when she was feeling physically, mentally, or emotionally under the weather her comfort clothes came out. She was currently wearing soft cotton pajama bottoms with daleks all over them, the black Laura Croft tank top her brother had sent her in a massive Tomb Raider gift package, her favorite Keep Calm hoodie, and the real give away that she was still feeling funky, her battered old bunny slippers. "Cuddly comfort clothes."

Sarah blushed because she knew he was right. "What I have on isn't an indication of how I'm feeling."

"Yeah," Michael snorted. "It is, and so is what you were watching on tv this morning." Bright hazel eyes narrowed at him and that just amused him even more. "You're door was partly open when I passed by this morning. You were watching Postman Pat, and Postman Pat is one of your comfort shows."

"You're annoying." Sarah pouted. She couldn't argue with him because he was right. Age be damned, when she was feeling under the weather it was all about the right cup of tea, a hot water bottle and children's shows from home, like Postman Pat and if she were really feeling like shit old reruns of Balamory.

He gently shoulder bumped her as he grinned happily at having caught her. "You know the same things about me."

She cracked a small smile. "We do know each other well, don't we?" Her smile shifted into a bit of a devilish smirk as she added, "Which is why I know your Dad doesn't know you stole all of his Green Arrow comics. Maybe I should tell him?"

"Sarah." Michael warned. "Don't you…"

She gave him a mischievous look before springing to her feet. She ran down the stairs towards the living room with a giggle. She even managed to get a few seconds head start because she'd honestly caught him off guard. "Sarah!"

Four sets of eyes looked up from the card game Helena, Myka, Amanda and Pete were playing when Sarah came into the room. Helena was about to ask if her daughter needed something when Michael came in. He wrapped his arm around Sarah's waist, snatching her up easily, and making her squeal in a very girly way. Helena knew her daughter well enough to know the giggling, the squealing, as Michael playfully picked her up off her feet was different than the sounds she made when playing around with Christopher. Unlike Myka and Pete whose relationship had been more of that of siblings, she could easily see the relationship between Sarah and Michael being closer to her own partnership with Myka, one that had gone past friends and well into romance. Helena wasn't sure how she felt about this.

"Problems you two?" Myka asked with a smirk.

"Nope." Michael grinned.

"Michael put me down!" Sarah demanded while squirming in his hold.

"What will you give me?" He teased.

"You are aware I could flip you into the table if I wanted?" She replied.

He smiled. "You don't want to. So what are you going to give me?"

She struggled a moment more before finally giving in. "My last Jaffa cake."

"Oh dear." Helena said, blushing guilty.

"Mum!" Sarah bellowed. "You ate my last Jaffa cake?"

Myka smirked as she ratted her wife out, "She finished off the jam and custard slices too."

"Mummy!" Sarah scolded with a pout. "Ok that's it I'm putting a safe in my room. You people get your own snacks."

Michael laughed and started carrying Sarah towards the kitchen. "Come on Duchess. I'll share some of my Nutter Butters with you."

"They're cute." Pete said as he watched Michael carry Sarah out of the room towards the kitchen. "I bet they would have been best friends as kids."

Myka laughed. "I bet they would have been a handful together as kids. Sarah's to much like Helena not to have caused a lot of trouble."

"I should be offended." Helena huffed softly before chuckling. "But it is rather true. Myka's sensibly didn't kick in until she was much older. It would have been like setting little versions of you and I loose on the world."

Pete smirked. "That would have been so cool."

Amanda saw the flicker of pain in her husband's eyes and it hurt. Since reconnecting with Myka and Helena Pete had really been dealing with his regrets. He often talked about how things could have been, how their families should have been close, and how their kids should have grown up knowing each other. There should have been shared birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. The prickle of guilt she'd been feeling bubbled up to the surface. "I think I owe you all a bit of apology."

"Huh?" Pete said as he looked at his wife. "What for?"

Amanda took a moment to gather her thoughts. She wasn't really sure how to go about talking about the thoughts running around in her head. "Helena," She said softly as she looked over at the English woman. "Did you know Pete reads your books?"

"Pete reads?" Myka teased.

"Myka." Helena scolded before turning to look at Pete. "You do?"

Pete blushed while Amanda continued. "All of them, the futuristic noir, the human/alien earth cohabitation," She paused for a moment and smirked before adding, "Even the St. Claire and Loch detective series."

There was a huge smile on Helena's face as she leaned over to kiss Pete on the cheek. "Pete that's so sweet."

Pete grumbled but that still didn't stop his wife who smiled softly, lovingly as she said, "When Pete reads your books he gets these looks, like somehow reading them is his way of spending time with you, especially the detective books because I'm guessing the characters are kind of loosely based on you and Myka." Helena nodded in confirmation and she smiled.

"How does all of this factor into you needing to apologize?" Pete asked.

"I'm getting there." Amanda replied.

"Does getting there mean more Pete torture?" He asked.

Amanda simply smiled sweetly at him before going on. "The only time I would see those looks, especially the look of sadness when he'd finish a book, was with yours. Until he started reading The Invisible Man and I saw it again, and then again when he read The Time Machine, and War of the Worlds. At the time I just figured there was sentimental attachment, a favorite author of yours or one of you turn him onto to the books in the first place."

Helena was getting uncomfortable and tense. She had a fairly good idea where this conversation was going. "You no longer think that's the case?"

"Sarah said something to Michael while she was sick." Amanda replied. "He was trying to make her smile and told her she couldn't die because you'd harm him and she replied you'd be creative about it, because you were after all the father of science fiction."

"Well." Helena said nervously. "Clearly not the father."

"I turned my wedding party into hive drones." Amanda said as she took in the uncertain looks of her husband and his friends. "Pete was nearly killed by a suicide bombing tattoo. And I just watched while a book written by a long dead Irishman nearly killed Sarah. I'm still in enough of a believe it or not frame of mind to think your initials aren't a cute homage to a distant uncle."

"Is appears that it's getting rather difficult for a girl to keep her secrets these days." Helena looked at Amanda and smiled. It was neither a confirmation nor a denial of what Amanda was implying.

Pete chuckled nervously. "What are you saying Amanda? That Helena's really the female H.G. Wells who was somehow frozen in time and woke up one hundred and ten years later?"

"She might not have but you just did." Myka said with a long groan.

"What I'm saying is that as a Marine I understand the need for secrets." Amanda replied. "And I know that in this case the secrets are really more about the how and why more so than the who, and because the powers that be couldn't risk anyone asking the how and why questions, namely me, they decided it would be best if our families didn't mingle." Reaching over Amanda put her hand on Pete's. "That's why I owe you all an apology because in a small way I was a factor in why we couldn't have this big extended family Pete's picturing in his head."

"Though I have no doubt that the family would have been, in Pete's words, epic, if we'd all been together all these years," Helena said, a fond smile on her lips because it would have indeed been an adventure of a life time raising children alongside the Lattimers. "I do believe that powers greater than even Mrs. Fredric and the Warehouse were at play. Everything has happened the way it has for a reason."

Amanda looked at the other woman for a long moment before asking, "You see it to don't do you?"

"Indeed I do." Helena replied.

Pete and Myka looked at their wives, looked at each other, and then turned back to their wives and in unison asked, "See what?"

Before either of them had a chance to answer there was a shriek from the kitchen followed by a loud, "Michael Augustus Lattimer! I'm going to bloody kill you!"

Moments later Michael came running through the house, quickly followed by first one and then the second bunny slipper, which came only seconds before Sarah came running after him, the front of her hoodie and tank top soaked from where Michael had sprayed her with the kitchen sink hose. The four adults in the house listened as the front door opened followed a few moments later by Sarah declaring, "I know where my Mum hides her weapons Michael! Michael! Mic-arrrgh! That's cold!"

When they reached the front porch they watched as Michael and Sarah, both soaked now, struggled for the garden hose that was drenching everything.

Myka laughed as she watched their 20something year old children played in the yard like five year olds.

"And Artie thought we were children." Pete said, laughing.

"No he thought you were a child." Myka teased.

Helena snorted. "Compared to me you're all babies." Looking over to Amanda she gave the woman a bright smile before winking at her.


	14. Chapter 13

He watched from a distance as she charmed her way into the still closed Cold War exhibit. They were in Moscow for an artifact switch at the State Historical Museum. The museum was about to open a new exhibit displaying some things from the Cold War era. One of the items had been on Artie's most wanted list and despite the fact that they were inching towards their holiday breaks, he wanted this done before they went off to be with their families. Michael watched in awe as Sarah smiled and chatted up the security guard out of view of the cameras, where she'd maneuvered him and he hadn't even noticed. She distracted him, keeping his eyes on her at all times, touching his arm, and getting close to him, while switched out the artifact for the fake. No one but Michael saw her slip the fake out of her bag, place it on the table, grab the real one, put it back in her bag, and then adjust the fake so it was in the exact spot the real one had been in. It had taken less than ninety seconds to pull off. Then he heard her laugh as she broke off the conversation and the sound made him smile. He trailed her back out to the car where he found her waiting with a Cheshire grin.

"That was fun." Sarah said as she held up the static bag with the newly acquired artifact. "I don't really get much use out of my Russian, other than talking to Artie."

Michael just shook his head as they slipped into the car. "How do you even know how to do that stuff you do?" He asked as he started the engine. "Is that just something else you learned from H.G. or do they teach the art of the con in MI5 school?"

Sarah laughed softly. "Mum did teach me how to be charming and a few other useful skills, but a lot of the more, lets say devious, skills I have I learned from Bertie."

"Bertie?" Michael asked as he spared a quick second to look at her. He didn't want to take his eyes off the road, he'd seen to many Russian dash cam videos to even think of blinking while he drove them to the airport.

"Short for Albert." Sarah said with a soft smile on her lips as her memory played out a few select moments from her past.

The look on her face said it all and Michael felt an odd cringe in his gut. "Old boyfriend?"

Sarah nodded, her smile turning a little sad. "First serious boyfriend."

"How serious?" Michael asked, as he realized that the cringe in his gut was the pain of jealously, which he had no right to feel, as it tried to bubble up into his chest.

"As serious as a nineteen year old can be about a guy." Sarah explained. "We lived together for a year or so, much to my mothers' disapproval."

They had known each other for a long time now, and they had been through a hell of lot together, but they rarely ever talked about their past relationships so Michael couldn't help but be full of questions. He wanted to know everything about her. "Did that have anything to do with the, lets say more devious, skills he was teaching you?"

"Bertie was a grifter." Sarah said as if announcing he was something a bit more respectable, like a doctor or a cop. "A bloody damn good one for someone who was only twenty-one, it came naturally to him since it was kind of a family business thing."

Since they were at a light he was able to turn and give her a befuddled look as he said, "You lived with a criminal for a year?"

Sarah shrugged like it was no big deal because it wasn't. Despite what he did Bertie was a good guy and she had truly loved him as deeply as any nineteen-year-old girl could love in that way. "I went through a rebellious stage."

"What finally broke you two up?" He asked while taking this all in. Sarah had relaxed a lot since they first met but he was still having a hard time seeing her as the type who would date someone like this Bertie character.

"MI5." Sarah answered. "Hard to share a bed with someone who breaks the law everyday when you're the one being trained to catch them."

They pulled into the rental car drop off at the airport and as they got out of the car and grabbed their bags he asked, "Was it a bad breakup?"

"Yes and no." Sarah answered. "It was mutual, friendly enough for a breakup, but it wasn't easy. I really loved him and his family and leaving them behind was hard. But he wanted to prove he could be as good as his father and granddad, and I wanted an MI officer."

Michael saw the flicker of emotion in Sarah's eyes. She really had cared about them, even missing them still. He smiled, trying to cheer her up. "I'm never good with the families. I always end up looking like a dork."

"That's because you are a dork." Sarah teased as they checked in and made their way through the airport.

"Is that why you're so good at cheating at cards?" Michael teased.

Sarah looked offended but knew it was true; she did cheat from time to time. "No, actually, that I learned from my Grandfather."

"The book store owner?" Michael asked with wide eyes.

She laughed. "He learned to play in the army and then used hustling cards to pay for college."

Since they had time before their flights they decided to head to the bar. They wouldn't be flying together because it didn't make sense for Sarah to fly all the way back to South Dakota and then turn around and get right back on a plane heading for London. As much as a Warehouse Christmas would have been fun, Sarah was looking forward to spending some time with her mothers and brother, and Michael was looking forward to being with his family as well. His older brother Matt had just had a baby and Michael was all about getting a chance to be uncle Mikey. Though there were parts of each of them that wanted to have the other with them, they wanted to share the best parts of this time of year with the other.

Sarah's flight boarded first. Michael walked her to the gate and gave her a hug, which lingered a little longer than a hug between friends should have. "Happy Christmas, Mikes."

"Merry Christmas, Sar." Michael replied. He held her a little longer and then stood there and watched until she was on the plane.

Michael leaned against the wall watching his brother with his wife. They were taking a moment to themselves since Amanda had commandeered her grandson and it seemed she wasn't giving him back any time soon. The couple looked tired but the way they smiled at each other made Michael smile. After a few more stolen moments of watching Matt being stupidly happy Michael grabbed his coat and headed out onto the porch. They'd had a winter storm pass through so everything was covered in either sparkling white snow or Cleveland gray slush, and it made Michael feel that much more at home. Sitting on the top step he watched as the kids in the neighborhood played with their shiny new snow toys but his thoughts were a lot further away. Sarah had been so excited about spending the holiday in London; all she'd talked about was shopping at Harrods, decorating the tree, finding out what her Mum would put in the Christmas crackers this year, and making sure Christopher didn't eat all the sugar mice. He smiled and laughed a little as he remember the look on Sarah's face when she told him about how much she was looking forward to the King's Christmas message, and the way her eyes lit up when she told him her Mum was taking her to Atlas House. She'd been as a kid, but this was her first time going knowing that it had been her mother's home.

"You look like you're a million miles away." Pete said as he sat beside his son. He watched Michael for a moment and then said, "Or maybe more like four thousand." He smiled as he handed Michael a mug of hot chocolate.

"Thanks." Michael said as he took the mug.

The two men sat there for a while just watching the world go by and sipping on their drinks. "So what do you think she's up to?" Pete asked.

"Who?" Michael asked as he turned to look at his dad.

Pete smirked. "Sarah. She's the one who's been on your mind since Matt and Adele got here." When his son opened his mouth to protest Pete shook his head. "Mom's have this way of seeing things when it comes to their kids, and yours seems to think that you have feelings for Sarah."

Michael dropped his head and stared into his mug. He watched the marshmallows bob around in the brown sea of chocolate and milk and sighed. "Doesn't matter if I did or didn't. Sarah's my best friend, my partner, and I won't risk those relationships for a daydream."

"So you're playing it safe?" Pete asked. "Are you hoping your feelings will change?"

"They did once." Michael answered. "They could change back."

"Is that what you really want, son?" Pete asked as he caught his son's eye. "To go back to when she didn't make your heart race or take your breath away with just a smile?" The surprised look on his son's face made him laugh. "When you mother smiles at me, just for me, I still feel like the luckiest man on earth. I know how the right woman can make you feel."

He wasn't sure when it happened, but it was true, he'd fallen in love with her. He was trying not to let that complicate things. They loved their work, and the people in their lives, and he wouldn't risk throwing this odd little family off kilter again. It wouldn't just hurt Sarah if he messed things up, it would hurt his dad, her moms, Claudia, Artie, Leena, and Steve. He was convinced that keeping his feelings a secret was best for everyone, and hopefully some day, maybe someone… Michael sighed. He honestly couldn't see himself with someone else. When he watched Matt with his wife, when he pictured that life for himself, his heart made his head see Sarah.

"Life is like a thrill ride, son." Pete said with a nod of his head. "It's full of ups and downs, and it gets your heart racing, and then just like that it's over. If you really feel like Sarah's the one who should be sitting next to you in the front car of that ride, then you need to be willing to take a risk."

Michael shook his head. "But what if…"

"Trust me, Mikey." Pete said with a smile. "I got a vibe about this."

New Year's Eve in Time Square New York had always been something Sarah wanted to experience, but not like this. She and Michael were chasing a man with an artifact through the sea of partygoers, trying not to collide with to many people while also avoiding patches of snow, ice, spilled alcohol and vomit. Their prey was a community college history professor who specialized in colonial history. Professor Bonkers, as Michael had started calling him, had gotten his hands on a clock; a clock that he managed to figure out could reset time. Given his obsession with the British Empire and pre-revolution America they had a pretty good feeling that if they didn't stop this guy her Mum would no longer miss the horse and buggy days.

"There!" Michael called out.

Sarah looked and spotted their professor. She scanned the area and then pointed out a way to cut the guy off. Michael smiled at her in that you clever girl way that made the butterflies in her stomach take flight. She smiled back. She continued to chase after the guy while Michael slipped off to intercept him. They ran for a few more blocks, she was glad the crowds had thinned out a little, and just at the right moment Michael dropped down from a fire escape, knocking the man to the ground. Sarah ran up and snatched up the clock. Michael and the professor struggled while Sarah pulled the static bag from her pocket, she snapped it open and dropped the clock inside. The sparks made them all shield their faces.

"As much as I do believe things here would have been greatly improved if the U.S. would have had patience and left the Empire the way the Commonwealth countries did, I personally would be absolutely miserable in long wool skirts and petticoats." Sarah said as she looked at the man Michael forcing to his feet.

The man looked surprise when she spoke. "You're English?"

"As the King, darling." Sarah replied.

"The Empire!" The man shouted.

"Was good while it lasted, now do get it over it." Sarah replied.

After handing the man over to the police the two agents started making their way back through the crowds of people. Since they weren't running after an artifact Sarah took it all in and smiled. The city its self seemed to be alive with the buzz of excitement that a brand new year brought with it. When they were close enough to see the Waterford crystal ball high above the city Sarah stopped to look up. Michael stood behind her and smiled at the look of awe of her face. He loved that Sarah never seemed to get her fill of wonderment, not even after years of chasing down artifacts and working in the Warehouse.

Sarah smiled as she watched the ball sparkle and actually reached back to take Michael's hand. She loved the New Year; it always felt like a rebirth, a yearly invitation for second changes and first opportunities. She smiled when Michael squeezed her hand. She liked that they were together for this.

They were both shaken from their thoughts as the countdown started up around them. A new year was a promise of new adventures and new possibilities. Ten, nine, eight, a new year to be with friends, family and the people they loved. Seven, six, five, a new year to laugh, cry, get angry and be happy. Four, three, two, a new year to explore the world, to be at home, and discover new things about themselves, and each other. One, a new year to love and hopefully be loved in return.

The city exploded around them as midnight hit and the New Year began. Michael tugged lightly on Sarah's hand to make her turn and face him. "Sarah."

Turning to face him Sarah was expecting Michael to say Happy New Year. She wasn't expecting him to kiss her. Her eyes went wide for a moment as the surprise and shock rolled over her, but then they fluttered closed as she brought her arms up to wrap around his neck as she began returning the kiss.


	15. Chapter 14

Claudia watched the young woman working just a few feet away from her. There had been something off with Sarah since New Year's and she couldn't put her finger on it, though she had a pretty good idea that whatever it was it had something to do with Michael. Sarah had been far to willing to let her partner go off on cases with Steve or Luis, the Warehouse's newest recruit, and Claudia's first. The fact that Claudia could now bring in new agents meant they were that much closer to some pretty big changes, and that worried the regents a little. Claudia was very much not Mrs. Fredrick. She had a different way of see things, which meant she had a different way of doing things. This job cut people off from the rest of the world, from their very own families, because of the secrets they all had to keep. Claudia felt that the best way to fight back against the whole agents have three options thing was to give them a new family and that included family in the romantic sense. How much better would Rebecca and Jack's life had been if they could have been open about their relationship? It had been better for H.G. and Myka, Helena had stopped being crazy and evil and they were both still very much alive and happy. So if Sarah and Michael were heading down a similar path Claudia was all for it, but maybe Sarah wasn't?

"Want to tell me what's on your mind?" Claudia asked as she turned to look at the younger woman.

Sarah replayed that moment in New York over and over again. The way the kiss had made her feel, how it had made her heart skip a beat and her brain short circuit. But she also thought about how that kiss had scared the hell out of her and when it came to an end she looked up into her best friend's hopeful eyes and said, "Michael, we can't." He'd smiled sadly at her and said he understood but his eyes betrayed his disappointment. Michael might have been ready to take that kind of risk but Sarah wasn't. She sucked at relationships and she didn't want to risk loosing Michael completely when she finally managed to blow everything all to hell. She loved him; she loved him too much to risk hurting him.

When Claudia spoke to her Sarah shook off her thoughts and turned to look at her. "Pardon?"

"You've been lost in your own head a lot lately." Claudia said as she walked over to Sarah. "What's up kiddo?"

Sarah gave Claudia the same I'm fine smile she gave her mothers when she didn't want to talk. Since coming to the Warehouse Sarah had started seeing Claudia more and more like an aunt and there were times when she regretted not having had the chance to grow up around her. "Nothing. There's just a lot to get done."

"Yeah, see I don't buy it." Claudia said as she gave Sarah a look that said she could see through Sarah's crap. "I know you well enough to know you don't want to travel with Michael right now. And I've been around long enough to know that something happened between you two in New York." She crossed her arms and leaned against the stack as she said, "Want to tell me what that something was?"

"No." Sarah said firmly. "I do not."

Michael had been disappointed when Sarah pushed him away after their kiss but that didn't mean he had given up on them. When she'd looked into his eyes he'd seen the storm of emotions and at the eye of that storm was the truth. She loved him too. She just wasn't ready yet, she was scared, and at least for now Michael would be patient. At least he would be when it came to their personal life, but their professional life was another matter. He liked Luis well enough and he didn't mind working with the new guy but he missed his partner. As soon as they got home Michael went upstairs and knocked on Sarah's door. He had to tell her what she'd missed out on because he wanted to remind her how much she loved the chase. When there was no answer he opened the door and stuck his head in. All of her stuff was still there which was a good sign because the letter on her nightstand would have hit him a lot harder if she'd have taken more than just clothes with her.

"Where the hell did she go?" Michael demanded as he walked into the living room where Claudia and Leena where sitting.

"Who?" Leena asked softly.

"Sarah." Michael said as he held up the letter. "Where did she go? And why does she need space right now?"

"Sarah left?" Leena asked with wide eyes.

Claudia wasn't as surprised. "I guess she's a lot more like her mothers then we thought."

"What's that mean?" Michael asked.

"Myka and Helena both ran." Claudia told him.

"Ran?" Michael asked as he sank into a chair. "Ran from what?"

"Themselves." Claudia answered. "Their feelings, their fears. Each other."

Sarah was a lot like her mothers but she was also very much her own woman. Where as Helena had gone to Myka, and Myka to Helena, and talked to each other, gently helping the other to understand things but in the end walking away to allow the other to return on her own, Michael knew that Sarah understood she was just scared. She needed to know that if she went all in he would to. Sarah wasn't just running to hide; she was running to be chased.

"Where is he off to?" Leena asked as she and Claudia watched Michael jumped to his feet.

Claudia smirked. "If I had to guess? New York."

"Where are you off to?" Leena asked as Claudia pushed to her feet.

"To make sure the regents know where I stand." Claudia said firmly. "I don't want them being an issue. I'm not letting this family break up again just because we're all to human and sometimes two people can't help but fall in love."

Walking over to the sofa Myka sat down beside her daughter and pulled Sarah close to her side. She and Helena had been surprised when Sarah showed up at their doorstep, but were glad for the time with her. It had taken less than ten minutes for them to figure out something was wrong though. They'd given Sarah some space but when it was clear that the young woman wasn't going to willingly come out of her headspace Myka decided it was time to talk.

"Work or life?" Myka asked as she rested her cheek on top of Sarah's head.

"What?" Sarah replied.

Myka smiled softly. "Is it work that's upset you or something more personal?"

Sarah didn't respond at first. She wanted to believe that coming to her mothers' home was an attempt to escape talking about this but that was hardly the truth. In fact she knew that if anyone could help her sort all of this out it was her mothers. She'd learned a lot more about them after finding out the truth about who they were and she knew if anyone would understand it would be them. But that didn't make this any easier, Sarah could be very protective of her feelings and that didn't always make it easy for her to open up. "Both."

"Both?" Myka repeated. "How so?"

The younger Bering went quiet for a moment before asking, "Do you remember how it felt to fall in love with Mum?"

Myka smiled as she nodded. "It was terrifying."

Sarah blinked. She'd expected some kind of long poetic response not something so simple and honest. "Really?"

"Yes, really." Myka replied with a soft chuckle.

"Why was it terrifying?" Sarah asked. "Love isn't supposed to be terrifying."

"For a lot of reasons." Myka answered after giving it a moment of thought. "Helena set my world upside down. She had me doing things I never would have before meeting her. She had me feeling things I'd never felt with anyone before. On top of that I had loved someone before and he died and I knew that because my feelings for Helena were a thousand times what they'd been for Sam, that if something ever happened to her it would crush me. I also knew that after what she went through after loosing Christina if she lost someone she loved so deeply again there might not be any saving her a second time."

"If there was a possibility that it could be a disaster why bother?" Sarah asked.

Myka smiled a bright smile that lit up her eyes. "Because not loving her wasn't an option. Because as corny as it sounds we were meant to be, I mean the woman waited frozen in time for me, if that doesn't scream made for each other I don't know what would."

"What would have happened if you two hadn't worked out?" Sarah asked as she looked up into her mother's green gaze.

"It did work out." Myka answered. "And it helped that we didn't dwell on the what ifs. Working at the Warehouse, working with the artifacts, you have to have a certain amount of blind faith, yes?" Sarah nodded and she smiled. "Well my love so does loving someone. Love isn't logical it isn't predicable or controllable. You just have to have faith that what you feel and what he feels will be enough to get you started and keep you stable and strong enough to work through everything else."

Sarah needed a moment to think about that so she asked, "How do you know there's a him?"

"One, because you've never showed an interest in girls before." Myka began.

Sarah cut her off. "Neither did you until Mummy."

Myka laughed. "Fair point, so two, we know that the him in question is Michael."

Hazel eyes went wide as Sarah asked with a squeak, "How do you know its Michael?"

"We know you Sarah." Myka told her daughter with a smile. "Mum saw it first because she's spent more time around the two of you together, and because to be honest I wasn't ready to see you look at anyone the way you look at Michael."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "How exactly do I look at Michael?"

"As if the world would stop turning if he weren't in your life." Myka said honestly. "As if you can see yourself as an old woman yelling at him to mind the garden gnomes as he tries to prove he isn't to old to mow the lawn."

"That was a really odd and specific example." Sarah pointed out with a laugh.

"You are to much like your Mum and you both have a weird thing for garden gnomes." Myka said with a laugh and a shrug of her shoulders. "It's easy to see you yelling at Michael the way she yells at me." Myka paused for a few minutes to let things sink in and then said, "Your life can't always be just about the Warehouse, Sarah. And you can't always play it safe, believe me, I understand that you take a lot of risks in your work and that you need to keep something under your control, but don't let the need for the safe and well known be an albatross around your neck."

"But what if I can't have both?" Sarah asked. "I don't want to loose the Warehouse any more than I want to loose him."

"But what if you can have both?" Myka countered. "Baby, you need to stop. What ifs are just roadblocks along the path, if you can't get past them you'll never really get the kind of momentum that makes life an adventure."

Sarah sighed softly as she leaned back into her mother's embrace. "Aren't you meant to be the rational one?"

Myka laughed. "I'm married to a Victorian woman who's close to one hundred and seventy five years old and is best known around the world as being the father of science fiction who once tried to kill off humanity by bringing on another ice age using the trident that took out Atlantis. There is no being rational when it comes to loving someone the way I love your Mum."

Her mom had left her with a lot to think about and she needed to be alone to do it so Sarah made her way to the pool on the roof of her mothers' building. She swam laps while she thought about what to do about Michael. She couldn't stay away from the Warehouse for long so she needed to think quickly, but how do you rush through something like this? Her thoughts would go all over the place but end up circling back to the same conclusion. She loved him. Ok she could accept that but what to do about it she still wasn't sure. When she was tired of swimming she went back down to her mothers' apartment to shower and eat. At one point while she was letting the hot water beat down on her in the shower she silently asked for a sign, something to point her in the right direction.

As she made her way to the kitchen to find food there was a knock on the door. When she looked through the peephole her heart stopped. Well if this wasn't a giant neon sign screaming at her, she wasn't sure what else it could mean. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the door as she held her breath. She counted to thirty to give herself time to compose herself before opening the door. "Michael, what are you doing here?"

"We need to talk." Michael replied firmly.

Sarah stood there staring at him for a moment before sighing and turning away from the door and walking back into the apartment. She felt her heart stumble when she heard the door and his footsteps behind her. She wasn't sure she was ready for this. "How did you even get up here?"

"I told the regent muscle doorman I was here on business." He admitted as he watched her moved across the living room. Her hair was damp and her pale skin still flushed from the heat of a recent shower, and it was probably a really bad time to think about how sexy he thought she was like that but he couldn't help it.

"And are you here on business?" Sarah asked as she leaned against the back of the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest as if protecting the uncertain muscle that laid within.

"Yes, kind of." Michael replied. "Personal business."

"Michael, I…" Sarah began but then stopped when he took several steps closer to her and put his hand over her mouth. She glared at him and for a moment thought of biting him, but she didn't.

Michael took his hand away when he knew she was to pissed at him to speak to him, which would give him the moment he needed to ask, "Do you remember what it felt like the first time you looked out over the Warehouse?"

"Yes." She answered. "It was astounding and I was in awe."

"That's how I feel when I look at you." He admitted.

"Michael." Sarah said softly. She was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her life. Could she really love him the way he should be loved? Could she really make him happy the way he deserved to be? Could he really give her the kind of love she'd spent her life seeing between her mothers?

"I love you Sarah." Michael admitted. "I just needed you to know that, I needed the chance to say it out loud, because I think you might love me too and if you heard me say it, then maybe you'd be more willing to believe it."

She looked into his beautiful blue eyes for a long moment as she stood there trembling while wresting with her own emotions. What was it her mothers always said? You can't walk away from your own truth? "I do." She whispered softly. "Michael, I do love you."

"Then that's all that matters." Michael said before she could give him a but. "Everything else will fall into place."

Of course she gave him the but anyway. "But the Warehouse, our jobs, Michael we can't ask each other to give that up. We'd end up resenting each other for it."

"Who said we couldn't have both?" Michael asked. "And if we can't, so what, you mean more to me than anything else. I could loose everything in my life and be fine, everything but you, if I lost you, nothing else would matter."

Sarah stood there looking at him. The sheer determination in his eyes nearly made her smile. He could do that so easily, make her smile, make her laugh; piss her off in ways that no one else could. He made her feel safe, protected, respected and fierce. She looked into his eyes and she could see herself whinging at him over stupid things like leaving her without milk for her tea. "We should strive to welcome change and challenges, because they are what help us grow."

"Huh?" Michael replied with a confused look.

Sarah laughed. "It's something my Mum wrote a long time ago."

"I'm trying to convince you that taking our relationship to the next level is a good idea and you're quoting H.G. Wells at me?" Michael asked, still looking confused.

"What you're asking me to do is going to change everything, Michael." Sarah explained. "And it's going to be one challenge after another."

"Yeah, but what's life without a little risk?" Michael asked as a hint of a smile broke out on his face. He could see it in her eyes, her struggle to refuse waning. The storm was settling and all that was left was the love in her eyes that made them a beautiful shade of dark forest green.

She smiled at him. "No bloody fun at all I suppose."

He pulled her so close there was no space between them as he kissed her. This time there was no hesitation as she kissed him back. In that moment with them both on the same page it was easy to finally allow things between them to bubble to the surface. Soon enough kissing wasn't enough for either of them. If they were going to do this, if this thing whatever it turned out to be was going to start in this moment, then they were going to jump into it head first.

"Your moms?" Michael managed to ask as Sarah unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it from his shoulders.

"Went to the theater." Sarah answered breathlessly. "They'll be out all evening."

"Good." He smiled before reaching for her again. He let his fingers get lost in her dark hair as they kissed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he let his own wrapped around her body, holding her close to him. He felt her body tense and responded, lifting her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist. They continued to kiss, finally giving in to passions long ignored as he carried her to the spare bedroom.

"Myka my love." Helena said with a bemused smirk several hours later. "You might want to hold off on taking that ice cream to Sarah."

"Why?" Myka asked as she turned to look at her wife who was crouched to pick something up off the floor. When Helena held up the item Myka's eyes went wide.

"Because I do believe she is other wise engaged at the moment." Helena replied, still smirking, while holding Michael's forgotten shirt. The look on her wife's face made Helena laugh.

When morning came Sarah found herself waking up in Michael's arms. She smiled contentedly as she stretched out over his body like a purring cat. She wouldn't mind waking up like this everything morning. She settled against him once more to doze in the warm sun coming through her window. A moment later her hazel eyes popped open and she sat bolt upright. "Oh bollocks! Michael!" She hissed at him. "Michael wake up!"

Michael moaned. "What?"

"It's morning." Sarah said in a near panic.

"Yeah?" He replied as he curled around her naked body. "So?"

"It's morning and we're naked together in my mothers' apartment." Sarah said bluntly.

His blue eyes snapped open. "You're Mum's going to kill me isn't she?"

"Why does everyone worried about my Mum first?" Sarah asked, a little annoyed. "It's the whole tried to destroy the world thing isn't it?"

"Little bit, yeah." Michael admitted with a chuckle.

Sarah rolled her eyes. Then she squeaked when he pulled her down on top of him. "Michael!" She hissed at him again. "They'll be home by now."

He kissed her good morning and then let her go. "Are you going to try and sneak me out like we're teenagers?"

"No." She replied but when there was a knock on the bedroom door she squeaked very much like a busted teenager. She pressed her hands tightly over Michael's mouth when she saw him about to laugh.

"Sarah?" Helena's voice came through the door. "Are you awake my precious girl?"

Sarah thought about not answering but her mother was likely to come in if she thought she was asleep. "Yes Mum, I'm awake, I'll be out in a moment."

"I'm making breakfast darling." Helena announced. "Don't be long." There was a pause and then, "What would Michael like with his crepes?"

The noises Sarah made, made both her new lover and her mother laugh, and she spent the rest of the morning burning a bright red and avoiding her mothers' gazes. Thankfully her mothers were merciful and didn't press her to talk or question Michael. There would be time for them to have a chat with the young man later. For now they were happy to just let Sarah explore this new relationship with the young man she loved, and they were glad she'd finally allowed herself the chance to do so. One of their greatest wishes for their children was that they would each find someone who made them feel the way they made each other feel, to know the kind of love they shared, and they were both pretty sure Sarah had found that in Michael Lattimer.


	16. Epilogue

She stood in the large oak walled room staring down the collection of Regents sitting around the long oak table. Once upon a time these people would have made her nervous but Claudia wasn't that young girl anymore, she wasn't even simply an agent any longer. She looked each and every person in the room in the eye before she began to speak, "You all work to keep the Warehouse safe and functioning and that's great, but the phrase there is that you work for the Warehouse." This wasn't the first time Claudia had to face these people and plead her case, but that was before she took over as Caretaker. Those few short years ago she had been the agent in charge, she was the boss but still under the thumb of the Regents. That was no longer the case. "But I am the Warehouse, we have this symbiotic relationship that lets me understand it in ways none of you ever could."

There was some unease in the room. The Regents didn't care much for the way Claudia was doing things but there was little they could do. She was the Caretaker now, and that position couldn't just be refilled whenever they were unhappy with someone's performance. It took a special kind of person to be Caretaker, so they just had to deal with Claudia and her new points of view. Claudia liked having the upper hand.

"The Warehouse is content." Claudia told them. "It's been on its best behavior, keeping the artifacts in check, and expanding into its new space without any glitches. Why? Because it's happy, and it's happy because nearly three decades ago Irene brought in two people who would change things for the better. Before Pete and Myka agents had three choices, they either went crazy, they turned evil, or they died. But there was something special about them and they became the nucleus of what would grow into a family."

Myka smiled soft from where she sat. She was so proud of the woman Claudia had become and watching the younger woman take a stand on behalf of those she loved most meant a great deal her.

"This job takes everything from a person." Claudia continued. "It takes an agent out of his or her life, away from his or her family and friends, it disconnects them from the rest of the blissfully ignorant world, and until Pete and Myka we didn't offer them anything to replace what they sacrificed." She paused for a moment to let these people linger on her word choice. "The Warehouse took notice of the change that happened when the five of us, Leena, Pete, Myka, Artie and I, came together. It felt the love and respect, and devotion we had for each other. It felt the ups and downs as our family took in Helena, Steve, and even Irene, and it began to understand. That kind of connection, that's what it had longed for, but had only been given crumbs of over time. As much as I love and respect Irene, she and the other Caretakers before her weren't listening. We all find the Warehouse and it's contents astonishing, we say that it's full of endless wonder and that's it a place where miracles can happen, well, that's how the Warehouse feels about us. It thinks we're amazing and full of hope and wonder and miracles. And when you all decided to break that connection by forcing Myka, Helena, and Pete to remove themselves from it, it felt sadness and longing for those who had brought love into its presence."

There were murmurs from some of the older Regents, the ones responsible for making those choices. They were not happy with having their decisions criticized. Claudia shot them all a look that said she wasn't finished yet. "The choice to retire them because they wanted families worked out for the best this time, but who's to say it would work out so well a second time? I'm not going to let you all disrupt the peace my Warehouse has now that it's humans are together as a family again. I'm not going to allow you to arbitrarily make choices about the lives of the people under my care. This is my family and I'm not going to let a group of strangers who just don't get it, break us apart, not again."

Claudia once again looked everyone in the eye. "Your options are welcome but you do not get to play masters to my people."

It was a story they'd seen repeatedly over the years. Some ordinary bloke stumbles upon something that has weird powers and one of the first things that come to mind is revenge. The man had come across a figurine of a Lab at an estate sale that turned people into Labradors. There was a kennel full of Labs who had once been people who in some way had done something to the guy. He wasn't sneaky about it either, there were witnesses, which is how they'd come to find out about it. Sarah and Michael had tracked the man down and Sarah had nearly talked him into handing over the artifact, but then the situation hit him, he must have realized he was in some kind of trouble to have government agents after him, so the man decided to lunge at her. She could have easily stopped him, he was attacking out of fear and that often made people clumsy, but before she could even react there was a bright flash of light from a Tesla. The energy hit the man and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"Michael." Sarah said as she shook her head. "You didn't have to do that."

"He was coming at you." Michael said as he walked up behind her.

She turned to face him, giving him a look that said she wasn't happy. "I could have handled him. I was fine. You didn't have to Tesla him."

"He had the artifact, he could have touched you with it." Michael argued.

Sarah groaned. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose while taking a few deep breathes before raising her hazel eyes to look into his. "Michael, I'm pregnant, I'm not incompetent. I can still do my job." She glared at him a moment longer before crouching down next to the man to check his pulse before reaching for the artifact. "I have to apologize for my husband." She told the unconscious man. "His pending fatherhood has turned him into an over protective Neanderthal."

Michael huffed as Sarah handed him the stone dog. He put it into a static bag, and then once the sparks had stopped he reached out his hand to help his wife from her crouch. Yes, he was being overprotective but he had every right too be. They had been together for over a year when he stopped her in a snow covered London park to ask her to marry him. The following summer they'd had a small ceremony on the beach with their families all in attendance. It had been both an exciting time and a nerve wracking one because there had been whispers of the Regents making them choose the way they had done their parents, but Claudia had stepped up for them, convincing the Regents to allow them to remain active agents as a married couple. Then a few short months ago not long after their second anniversary Sarah informed Michael that she was pregnant with their first child and their lives once again became a roller coaster ride of excitement and awe and uncertainty.

"Reactions like this one are just going to give the Regents a reason to force us into retirement, Michael." Sarah said as she moved closer to her husband. "I know that wanting to stay with the Warehouse is a selfish choice, given the unpredictable nature of our work, but this is our home Michael, our family. I want our child to know the people we love and care about."

Michael had his doubts about raising a child so close to the Warehouse, but Sarah was right. Along with their parents and siblings the people from the Warehouse were their family. He couldn't picture his life without them in it, and they were good people he wanted his child to know. "Claudia's meeting with the Regents, she'll make them see things her way, you'll see." He kissed her softly and then said, "Come on, lets make sure those people are people again and then head home."

When they got back to the B&B after dropping the artifact off at the Warehouse they found not only Claudia but their parents as well. Sarah suddenly became very nervous. She'd been telling herself that with her mother as a Regent and Claudia as Caretaker things would have to go their way, but now she wondered if she'd allowed her hopes to get to high. Why would both sets of parents be here if not to soften the blow and help them make plans to retreat into a normal life.

"Hello my precious girl." Helena greeted with a huge smile. "Did you two have a successful snag and bag?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes."

"Good." Helena said before holding up a paint sample card, it was a pretty shade of light green. "What do you think of this color?"

Sarah looked confused. "Um, it's nice?"

Claudia held up a warm yellow. "I like this one better."

"Better for what?" Michael asked.

The smile Claudia gave them lit up the room. "The nursery. We thought we'd convert the room next to yours."

"That use to be my room." Helena said, a look of found nostalgia on her face.

"Wait, so we can stay?" Sarah asked with wide eyes.

Claudia nodded. "Of course you can stay! Ye of little faith."

"There are conditions." Myka said while Sarah took a seat beside her on the couch. "You're on office duty until after the baby is born. There's just to much that could happen, to many unknown ways an artifact could effect you or the baby, and those are risks we're not willing to take."

"After the baby is born you'll be able to go back out into the field." Helena said. "And since you'll be needing some extra hands around, Mom and I are moving back here."

"And we're going to be spending more time here to." Pete threw in. Amanda nodded her agreement.

Michael was smiling as he watched his wife relax. "See, I told you there was nothing to worry about."

For as long as they wanted to stay they could. No one was breaking them up this time, and everyone in the room felt the relief that washed over Sarah. They had all been through so much, and they'd done a lot of it with each other, and a lot without and it was the with that was just a little bit better some how. No one would change the past, the two families had had good lives, and it led to Michael and Sarah being together and the creation of a new life, which they all had a part in. The future was bright and the present was where they all wanted to be now anyway.

"So which color?" Myka asked holding up the paint samples again.

Sarah smiled. "If you lot want to do the work that's fine by me. I just have a few conditions of my own."

"Such as?" Amanda asked.

"Ducks." Sarah answered. "There has to be ducks, and maybe lambs."

"Why ducks and lambs?" Claudia asked, while wondering how to fit ducks into a rock and roll theme.

Myka smiled a mother's smile as she answered for her daughter. "Sarah's baby blanket had ducks on it and her favorite toy was a soft lamb named Ned."

Michael laughed. "Ned lives on top of her dresser now."

"And her blanket is in the bottom draw of her nightstand hidden under a silk scarf and boxes of tampons, which she uses to deter prying eyes." Helena added.

"Mum!" Sarah exclaimed as her mother ratted her out. It was one thing to admit her old stuffed friend sat on her dresser, but to admit she still had her blanky! Not to mention saying the word tampon in front of people. "You are an evil old woman."

"Yes darling I know." Helena chuckled.

"And what is your other condition?" Myka said with a chuckle, distracting their daughter before Sarah could harm her mum.

Sarah looked at Michael for a moment. They'd been talking about it on their way home. Just before they'd left they'd had an ultrasound and she wanted to share the results of that, as well as the results of their conversation. Michael nodded with a bright smile so she turned to look at their family. "Incorporate her name."

"Her?" Amanda repeated excitedly. "A girl?" So far her eldest son had given her two beautiful grandsons, so the thought of a granddaughter was thrilling.

Michael nodded. "It's a girl."

There was a moment of cheer and excitement shared between the grandparents and aunt Claudia and then Myka asked, "What's her name?"

Again Michael and Sarah shared a look before Sarah faced them. They wanted to pick names that would have meaning for them, names that would mean something to their families. The names they agreed on not only did that but also honored two people lost to them, one a very long time ago, and the more recently. "Christina Jane."

Tears welled in Helena's eyes and a lump formed in Pete's throat. It was perfect. And who knows, perhaps the girl would grow up and become the fourth generation of Bering-Wells-Lattimers to become an Agent of the Warehouse.


End file.
